Communications Specialist

Communications Specialist

Candidates MUST:
have the ability to work onsite five days a week at the customer site in McLean, VA

Be located in the United States for the current three consecutive years and the Ability to obtain and maintain a Public Trust clearance 

Join our team and help shape the future of transportation!

Leidos is hiring an onsite Communications Specialist based at the Turner-Fairbank Highway Research Center's Saxton Transportation Operations Laboratory (STOL) in McLean, Virginia. This advanced research lab and smart garage enables groundbreaking research and testing that allows the U.S. Department of Transportation (USDOT) to validate and refine new transportation services and technologies developed by Leidos and our partners.

About the role:
This is a generalist Communications Specialist role supporting a broad range of communications needs across the lab. You will work across social media, presentations, multimedia, and accessibility compliance, frequently managing multiple tasks at once and working directly with technical experts to translate complex research into clear, engaging, and accessible content.

This role is well-suited for someone who enjoys variety, is comfortable switching between projects, and can work independently while coordinating closely with a collaborative communications team.

Responsibilities include:

• Independently collaborate with technical experts and researchers to develop engaging communications content across multiple platforms, including print, digital, social media, and presentations.
• Apply Section 508 accessibility best practices to all materials, ensuring documents, presentations, videos, and other multimedia are accessible to all audiences.
• Create, edit, and publish social media content that highlights the lab’s research, tools, technologies, and events for the public through federal client channels.
• Design and develop visually compelling presentations, and visual materials for internal and external audiences.
• Assist multimedia designers with video and multimedia projects, with a focus on  captioning, accessibility, and  compliance.
• Support the development of fact sheets, briefings, newsletters, and other communications collateral.
• Collaborate with internal teams to maintain consistent messaging, branding, and quality standards across all communications materials.
• Help identify creative ways to present complex technical information so it is clear, engaging, and understandable to a variety of audiences.
• Manage multiple projects and tasks simultaneously while keeping deadlines and priorities on track.

Basic qualifications:

• Bachelor’s degree in Communications, Multimedia, Marketing, English, or related field.
• Approximately 3 years of professional experience in communications, marketing, multimedia, or related area.
• Hands-on experience with Section 508 compliance in documents, presentations, or multimedia.
• Experience with social media content creation and strategy.
• Skilled in creating visually engaging presentations (PowerPoint, Google Slides, Canva, etc.).
• Strong written and verbal communication skills; able to adapt messaging for technical and non-technical audiences.
• Comfortable managing multiple projects in a fast-paced environment.
• Proficiency in Microsoft Office Suite; familiarity with Adobe Creative Suite.

Anticipated Salary Range for this role: $75,000 - $90,000

If you're looking for comfort, keep scrolling. At Leidos, we outthink, outbuild, and outpace the status quo — because the mission demands it. We're not hiring followers. We're recruiting the ones who disrupt, provoke, and refuse to fail. Step 10 is ancient history. We're already at step 30 — and moving faster than anyone else dares.

Original Posting:

Pay Range:

The Leidos pay range for this job level is a general guideline only and not a guarantee of compensation or salary. Additional factors considered in extending an offer include (but are not limited to) responsibilities of the job, education, experience, knowledge, skills, and abilities, as well as internal equity, alignment with market data, applicable bargaining agreement (if any), or other law.