Northern Virginia Does Tech For Good

Working in tech comes with a ripe job market and a broad horizon, but there’s no disputing that some U.S. tech hubs have a wider range of career-making opportunities than others. Northern Virginia has thousands of open jobs in information technology, renewable energy, defense and aerospace and more. What’s more than the plentiful job opportunities at some of the leading tech companies in the world? The fact that many of these companies exemplify the saying, “tech for good,” by pursuing work that advances or improves social, economic or environmental outcomes.

Dice, a leading tech-career hub connecting employers with skilled technology professionals, recently issued its Q2 Tech Job Report revealing that tech job postings in Virginia during the COVID-19 pandemic rose a whopping 11 percent compared to Q2 of 2019, coming in at no. 3 in the country for tech job growth behind California and Texas. Three of the Virginia-based employers named in the report are headquartered in Fairfax County, including Leidos, General Dynamics and Booz Allen Hamilton. Northern Virginia is also a hot spot for careers in cybersecurity. Livability referred to Northern Virginia as the cybersecurity epicenter of Virginia, “home to the nation’s largest data center markets,” and Cybercrime Magazine named six Northern Virginia companies in its global list of the Hot 150 Cybersecurity Companies to Watch in 2020. A top region for tech growth, Northern Virginia is also a place where tech for good excels.

In Northern Virginia, we take pride in being a tech hub with an emphasis on making the world a better, safer place. Numerous companies headquartered in Northern Virginia, from multinational tech giants to innovative startups, are using their brain power for good by building meaningful technology to advance fields like defense, healthcare, aerospace and more.

Here are just a few examples of Northern Virginia tech leaders that epitomize “tech for good.”

Leidos

Headquartered in Reston, Virginia, research company Leidos’ mission is to bolster American defense, aviation, and information technology efforts, making the world safer, healthier, and more efficient. Leidos’ Artificial Intelligence initiative is doing just that. The company strives to employ AI for good, using this powerful tool to help customers fight cancer, improve combat readiness, modernize the energy grid and more. 

The innovative team at Leidos created an AI system that can read and understand cancer-related scholarly articles, allowing researchers to sift through information more efficiently to “help fill knowledge gaps, generate new hypotheses, understand important causes and effects, and develop more targeted treatments.” In the context of combat warfare, Leidos has partnered with DARPA, the research and development arm of the U.S. military, as well as other contractors, to replace fighter pilots with reliable AI and allow pilots to focus on dynamic battle management. In a world where the population relies so heavily on the energy grid, Leidos has created an AI-powered solution that provides utility companies with a more efficient, cheaper and overall better way to take inventory of the energy grid. These are just a few ways in which Northern Virginia’s own Leidos is utilizing AI to make the world a better, safer place for generations to come.

Leidos has hundreds of available positions listed throughout the Northern Virginia region.

Hawkeye 360

In 2019, Herndon-based tech company Hawkeye 360 became the first commercial company to use formation flying satellites to create a new class of radio frequency (RF) data and data analytics. These Pathfinder satellites were commissioned to geolocate RF signals. Over the last year, Hawkeye 360’s cluster of three satellites successfully geolocated over 11 million RF signals, which enables a safer world by supporting a myriad of applications including: finding dark ships engaging in smuggling or illegal fishing, protecting wildlife from poachers, and assisting in emergency situations across air, land and sea. 

In fact, Hawkeye 360 landed a model of its Pathfinder a spot in the Smithsonian’s permanent collection. “Small satellites are changing what we can achieve in space, and we’re excited to be on the cutting edge of that revolution. We hope that our satellites inspire the next generation of talented minds,” said John Serafini, CEO of Hawkeye 360.

Hawkeye 360 currently has several available positions listed at its HQ in Northern Virginia – from Sales Executive to Senior Data Scientist.

Northrop Grumman

Aerospace and defense leader Northrop Grumman, headquartered in the Falls Church area, is using its innovative health sciences capabilities to support the health of members of the U.S. armed forces– both active duty and veterans– by improving the speed, quality and personalization of care provided to our service men and women. Paving the way for the future of military healthcare, the team at Northrop Grumman employs data interoperability and utilizes other powerful tools such as Virtual Reality Training, secure cloud solutions and layered cybersecurity to ensure the best possible health outcomes for the men and women who defend our country.

According to the company’s website, “Northrop Grumman’s military health capabilities provide complete situational awareness and data-driven decision making for a lifetime of health management that adapts at the speed of battle and enables improved peacetime, expeditionary force and casualty care readiness.”

Northrop Grumman has numerous available positions listed at its Falls Church, Virginia headquarters across a variety of specialties.

Aireon

Headquartered in Tysons, just 20 minutes from the nation’s capital, global air traffic surveillance innovator Aireon is working to revolutionize the global aviation industry by making the skies safer. Thanks to the team at Aireon, every airspace in the world has access to 100 percent global air traffic surveillance, allowing for the location tracking of aircrafts in emergency situations. The company’s Aireon Aircraft Locating and Emergency Response Tracking (ALERT) is the industry’s first and only free, global emergency aircraft location service. This service not only allows for reliable air traffic separation, but also provides extensive safety benefits, including increased situational awareness, early conflict detection, improved coordination of cross-border operations, reduced response times to abnormal situations and a significantly enhanced search and rescue response across the globe.

Aireon currently has four available positions at its headquarters in McLean, Virginia.

Northern Virginia’s thriving tech economy brings several key elements to the table in the age of COVID-19: career opportunities, innovations that improve lives in both short and long terms, and a business environment that facilitates innovation and creative thinking in order to find solutions to global problems. With 15,600 technology companies currently calling the region home, jobs in Northern Virginia and opportunities to develop technology for the public good are aplenty. Explore opportunities in Northern Virginia today. After all, innovation lives here.