Joint Strike Fighter Program

Client:  USAF and DoD Joint Command Branches

In recent years Softworld has compiled strong qualifications supporting Federal DoD initiatives, with particular emphasis on US Air Force (USAF) work.   Our expertise includes work across Cybersecurity, IT Operations, Network and Systems Engineering, Software Development, and Project Management as a subcontractor on USAF, Army, Navy, NAVAIR, and other related Joint Command efforts.   This experience led us to be brought on to the Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) program to support the IT Operations work behind the warfighter.

The Challenge

The Prime was running into issues with a large number of open billets on the JSF contract, causing the program to miss targets for service levels and fall behind on deadlines and deliverables.   The work on JSF was spread out across numerous military bases and customer locations across the US, often in remote or challenging areas to locate the necessary talent.   Adding to the challenge was the classified nature of the work, requiring Secret or Top Secret clearances for all resources prior to onboarding.   As time progressed on the program, an uncertain period of performance added uncertainty and risk to the program for employees, and the period of performance was extended a number of times on shorter bridge contracts.   Our customer had dozens of openings on a program with an uncertain future, requiring clearances, at dispersed bases across the US.   Every day that went by, our customer was losing money because these openings remained unfilled.

The Solution

We referred to the Prime by a former customer to help with their predicament.   Softworld worked with the management team at our client to prioritize and classify the positions on the program.   We held a hiring event at one of the customer’s primary locations and organized onsite interviews with prescreened candidates who met the qualifications for each labor category.   Each candidate’s clearance level and technical ability was validated prior to the interview.   This initial event was highly successful, and we scheduled weekly meetings to recalibrate priorities for the remaining openings to support JSF on an ongoing basis.

The nature of the work performed on JSF covered the Information Technology needed to support the F-35 warfighter program.   Softworld performed Systems Engineering and Architecture unique to JSF.   Our delivery team reached out to individuals from the private sector as well as former military to uncover the unique skills to support JSF’s mission.  Our application development team provided .Net and Sharepoint capabilities to the program.   JSF primarily used Microsoft technologies for servers and workstations and Softworld provided support and deployment engineers from help desk through tier three at remote locations in California and Maryland.   Cybersecurity of the systems on JSF was an overarching theme in all of the work Softworld performed.

Softworld FSO’s managed the clearance process from the initial flow down of the DD254, through the onboarding process for our employees working on JSF.   FSO’s validated all clearances during the interview process and handled the transfer of those clearances under Softworld’s cage once the resources began work on the program.   All visit requests and associated paperwork was managed by our team giving the customer the confidence that these details would be handled correctly by a capable partner who understands their environment.

Results

Softworld’s initial hiring event resulted in ten new employees joining the program after a one day series of interviews conducted by managers from Softworld and the Prime.   This initial push of talent onto the program helped the Prime get back on track by meeting SLA’s and milestones.   We monitored and prioritized new openings on JSF over the next 18 months resulting in over 40 new hires with a sustained presence of 20-25 on the program and continue to be the trusted subcontractor to support this need currently.  We have held four similar hiring events at intervals agreed upon with our customer, and they continue to produce results that justify the time and energy involved.   Softworld looks forward to continuing to support this critical mission for years to come.