500+ Engineering & Science Jobs in Washington, DC

Local government wage data is strong but lagged: BLS put the 2025 annual median at $117,440 for architecture and engineering occupations and $122,990 for life, physical, and social science occupations in this metro. Current posting data points to advertised salaries centering on about $131k to $198k, with a broader band of about $104k to $234k, but those are posted ranges rather than accepted pay.

Full September 2026 market report

Advertised pay

Across the 416 openings that disclose pay, the advertised range midpoint runs $100,000 at the 25th percentile, $132,100 at the median and $160,000 at the 75th. These are advertised ranges, not earned pay.

Active openings as of October 17, 2026

Senior roles | Entry level | Remote | Posted this week

Live from the Callings.ai index of over 13 million postings, refreshed hourly and re-checked here nightly. Roles that close are dropped at the next refresh.

Showing 30 of 250+ openings.

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What our analysts see this month

Competitive market | next 3-6 months

Washington is still a real market for Engineering & Scientific work, but it is not an easy one. We observed more than 3,400 postings across more than 1,100 companies in the last 90 days, and September expansion announcements from Data Machines in Reston and Cornet Technology in Springfield alone pointed to 155 new jobs touching engineering, product development, testing, and operations. The catch is that the broader local backdrop is softer than the national one: metro unemployment was 3.8% in August, while metro nonfarm employment fell 1.9610% year over year and local professional and business services fell 2.1022%. Read this as selective hiring with good upside for the right profile, not a broad hiring wave.

Best positioned: The best odds right now go to senior, systems-oriented candidates who can work on-site or hybrid and show systems engineering, Python, AWS, DevSecOps, and documentation depth for defense, public-sector, and consulting employers.

Main caution: The biggest trap is assuming this is a broad remote-friendly STEM market; about 70% of sampled roles were on-site, only about 5% were remote, and less than 5% of postings that stated a policy mentioned visa sponsorship.

From the September 2026 market report

Who is hiring here

Counted across all 501 openings in this market. 10 of the employers below are hiring for more than one role right now.

1. Sargent & Lundy: 50 open roles
2. Jacobs Engineering Group: 31 open roles
3. Northrop Grumman Corp.: 25 open roles
4. WSP Global Inc.: 15 open roles
5. M.C. Dean, Inc.: 10 open roles
6. General Dynamics Mission Systems: 9 open roles
7. Amazon Web Services, Inc.: 7 open roles
8. Bowman Company: 7 open roles
9. Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory LLC: 7 open roles
10. AECOM Corporation: 5 open roles

Where the openings are

• Washington: 94
• Herndon: 33
• Baltimore: 33
• Arlington: 31
• Manassas: 20
• Annapolis: 19
• Reston: 16
• Fairfax County: 14

Work arrangement

on-site 332 (67%), hybrid 150 (30%), remote 16 (3%)

Where the demand is

Real opportunity is clustered rather than evenly spread. Within local postings, the most-active industries are government and public sector, IT services and IT consulting, and defense and space manufacturing at about 20% each, with aerospace and defense and software development also showing up meaningfully. The most consistently active employers include Northrop Grumman, Peraton, Booz Allen, Deloitte, Science Applications International Corp., Amazon, and Leidos, but the overall employer base is fragmented rather than dominated by one firm. That fragmentation matters. It means you should think in demand pockets, not in one generic "engineering" market: mission systems tied to federal work, civil and structural roles tied to infrastructure and facilities, and specialized scientific environments tied to labs and technical buildouts. Recent local signals include a $114 million I-395 bridge rehabilitation, a $500 million Washington construction IDIQ with about 18 slots, and a 50,000-square-foot ATCC lab expansion in Manassas. It is also not a pure remote knowledge-work market. About 70% of sampled roles are on-site and about 25% hybrid, so geography, facility access, and day-one fit still matter a lot.

• Federal systems and mission engineering (high): This is the deepest pocket right now: defense, public sector, and IT consulting dominate much of the local mix, and the recurring skill stack is systems engineering, Python, AWS, DevSecOps, and technical documentation.
• Civil, structural, and facilities engineering (high): Bridge rehabilitation, Washington-area construction vehicles, and technically complex lab buildouts support demand for civil, structural, MEP, and construction-facing engineering work.
• Scientific facilities and specialized research environments (moderate): The lab side is real but narrower, with signals coming from specialized facilities rather than broad mass hiring, such as the ATCC expansion and engineering-oriented corporate buildouts in Fairfax County.

Where to focus: Start with mission systems or federally adjacent infrastructure programs, then widen to niche lab and research environments only if your background is directly aligned.

Roles worth searching next

• Technical Program Manager: This is a strong bridge for engineers who already own schedules, documentation, and cross-team delivery; project management and technical leadership are both recurring asks in the local sample.
• Construction Project Manager: Civil, structural, architectural, and facilities candidates can pivot here because local demand is tied to bridge rehabilitation, lab buildouts, and Washington-area construction vehicles, while broader engineering guidance still highlights construction administration as in demand.
• Cybersecurity Engineer: Systems engineering, AWS, DevSecOps, Kubernetes, and CISSP create a credible bridge into security-focused roles around federal and defense work.
• Technical Product Manager: Candidates with systems, Python, AWS, and consulting-facing backgrounds can move into product roles because the local mix includes software development and IT consulting as meaningful slices of demand.

What postings ask for

• Systems engineering (premium | immediate): It is the single most-requested hard skill in the local sample at about 25%, and it aligns with the employer mix of defense, public sector, and consulting. Who: Mid-career engineers, ex-military candidates, and anyone with complex hardware-software or program integration experience.
• Python (differentiator | immediate): Python appears in about 20% of local postings and travels well across simulation, automation, test, research, and systems roles. Who: Engineers and scientists who want to show they can automate analysis instead of only running tools manually.
• AWS (premium | near-term): AWS shows up in about 10% of local postings, and AWS Certified Solutions Architect is a recognized systems-engineering credential in 2026. Who: Systems engineers and technical leads moving closer to cloud-hosted simulation, mission software, or platform delivery.
• DevSecOps and Kubernetes (premium | near-term): Each appears in about 10% of local postings, signaling that systems roles increasingly expect secure delivery and deployment fluency, not just design knowledge. Who: Systems, software-adjacent, and integration candidates working in defense or regulated environments.
• Technical documentation (table_stakes | immediate): Technical documentation appears in about 10% of postings and is a practical separator in regulated, contract, and multi-stakeholder programs. Who: Entry-level candidates, scientists, and engineers who need to prove reliability and handoff quality.
• CISSP (differentiator | near-term): CISSP is the most frequently cited certification in the local sample, even if only about 5% of postings name it outright, which fits the area's security-heavy employer base. Who: Systems engineers or switchers aiming at security-sensitive federal and defense programs.

Questions about this market

What do Engineering & Scientific roles pay in Washington-Arlington-Alexandria, DC-VA-MD-WV?

Local government wage data is strong but lagged: BLS put the 2025 annual median at $117,440 for architecture and engineering occupations and $122,990 for life, physical, and social science occupations in this metro. Current posting data points to advertised salaries centering on about $131k to $198k, with a broader band of about $104k to $234k, but those are posted ranges rather than accepted pay. Compared with national medians of $99,520 for architecture and engineering and $82,530 for life, physical, and social science occupations, Washington offers a real premium for specialized work. That premium has to absorb a high-cost metro where home prices were still up 1.7% year over year in July.

Where is demand for Engineering & Scientific roles in Washington-Arlington-Alexandria, DC-VA-MD-WV concentrated?

Real opportunity is clustered rather than evenly spread. Within local postings, the most-active industries are government and public sector, IT services and IT consulting, and defense and space manufacturing at about 20% each, with aerospace and defense and software development also showing up meaningfully. The most consistently active employers include Northrop Grumman, Peraton, Booz Allen, Deloitte, Science Applications International Corp., Amazon, and Leidos, but the overall employer base is fragmented rather than dominated by one firm. That fragmentation matters. It means you should think in demand pockets, not in one generic "engineering" market: mission systems tied to federal work, civil and structural roles tied to infrastructure and facilities, and specialized scientific environments tied to labs and technical buildouts. Recent local signals include a $114 million I-395 bridge rehabilitation, a $500 million Washington construction IDIQ with about 18 slots, and a 50,000-square-foot ATCC lab expansion in Manassas. It is also not a pure remote knowledge-work market. About 70% of sampled roles are on-site and about 25% hybrid, so geography, facility access, and day-one fit still matter a lot.

Which employers are hiring the most Engineering & Scientific talent in Washington-Arlington-Alexandria, DC-VA-MD-WV?

Recent postings show the most activity from Northrop Grumman (100 postings), Peraton (75 postings), Booz Allen (75 postings), Deloitte (75 postings), Science Applications International Corp. (50 postings). See the full market report for the complete employer landscape.

Can Engineering & Scientific roles in Washington-Arlington-Alexandria, DC-VA-MD-WV be done remotely?

Of recent postings, 5% are remote and 25% hybrid, with 70% on-site. Use the Remote filter above to see only remote openings.

How current are these listings?

Openings come from the Callings.ai live index of over 13 million jobs, refreshed hourly. This page searches postings from the last 30 days; run the search yourself to filter by anything else in plain language.

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