How to Apply to Amentum Holdings

13 min read Last updated April 20, 2026 5 open positions
Blake Crosley
Blake Crosley Researched using publicly available information, hiring data, and ATS analysis.

Key Takeaways

  • Amentum is one of the largest pure-play U.S. government services contractors, with roughly 53,000 employees and $13 billion in revenue across defense, intelligence, nuclear, space, and civil agency work.
  • The company became publicly traded on NYSE under ticker AMTM in late 2024 following the Reverse Morris Trust merger between the prior private Amentum and Jacobs Critical Mission Solutions.
  • Apply through the Workday-hosted careers portal at pae.wd1.myworkdayjobs.com/Amentum_Careers, where roughly three thousand requisitions are typically active.
  • U.S. citizenship is required for the vast majority of roles, and a substantial fraction require an active in-scope security clearance at Public Trust, Secret, Top Secret, or TS/SCI with polygraph.
  • Veterans are aggressively recruited, and military experience in maintenance, intelligence, logistics, cyber, special operations, and nuclear specialties is treated as a meaningful credential.
  • Resume formatting matters: use plain reverse-chronological format, list clearance status in the header, spell out all acronyms on first use, and include relevant DoD 8570/8140 or DOE-specific certifications.
  • Interviews are contract-focused and behavioral rather than abstract; expect STAR-format questions about handling classified work, customer relationships, and operational reliability.
  • Salary bands are constrained by approved government labor category rates, so negotiation room is real but bounded; benefits and relocation are often more flexible than base pay.
  • Some offers are contingent on contract award or customer badging, which can extend the timeline by weeks or months; this is normal in GovCon and not a sign of dysfunction.
  • The post-merger integration of legacy Amentum, legacy PAE, and legacy Jacobs CMS means recruiter and interviewer styles vary; understanding which legacy organization owns the contract helps you tailor your approach.

About Amentum Holdings

Amentum Holdings, Inc. (NYSE: AMTM) is a Chantilly, Virginia-headquartered global engineering and government services contractor with approximately 53,000 employees and roughly $13 billion in annual revenue. The company operates from 4800 Westfields Boulevard in Chantilly and is led by Chief Executive Officer John Heller. Although the public company in its current form is only about a year old, the underlying business carries decades of legacy work spanning the U.S. Department of Defense, the Intelligence Community, NASA, the Department of Energy, the Department of State, and dozens of civilian federal agencies. Amentum's modern corporate identity was created through two distinct transactions. In early 2020, private equity firms Lindsay Goldberg and American Securities acquired AECOM's Management Services business and renamed it Amentum, taking the new entity private. In late 2024, Amentum merged with Jacobs Critical Mission Solutions (CMS) and Cyber & Intelligence Solutions in a Reverse Morris Trust transaction, creating a combined publicly traded company that began trading on the New York Stock Exchange under the AMTM ticker. Today, Amentum sits among the largest pure-play government services contractors in the world, alongside peers such as Leidos, Booz Allen Hamilton, SAIC, CACI, and ManTech. The portfolio is unusually broad, even by GovCon standards. On the defense side, Amentum supports U.S. military readiness through aircraft maintenance, ground vehicle sustainment, training and simulation, base operations support, and logistics across hundreds of installations worldwide. On the nuclear side, the company is one of the largest providers of services to the Department of Energy's Environmental Management program and the National Nuclear Security Administration, with deep expertise in nuclear cleanup, waste management, decommissioning, weapons stockpile stewardship, and reactor operations. On the space side, Amentum is a long-tenured NASA partner supporting Goddard, Kennedy, Marshall, Johnson, and Jet Propulsion Laboratory missions, including launch operations, mission support, and ground systems engineering. The Intelligence Community work is necessarily quieter but substantial, covering systems engineering, cyber operations, mission IT, and analytic support across the IC enterprise. Civil agency work spans the Department of State (embassy logistics, language services, training), the Federal Aviation Administration, the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of Justice, and many others. Geographically, Amentum has people in more than 80 countries. That international footprint is a defining feature of the business: the company runs base operations in the Middle East, supports embassies in conflict zones, maintains aircraft in the Asia-Pacific, and operates language and cultural training programs in dozens of nations. For job seekers, this scale and diversity translates into a few practical realities. First, Amentum is one of the most active hirers of cleared talent in the United States. On any given day, the Workday careers portal lists roughly three thousand open requisitions, a meaningful fraction of which require an active U.S. government security clearance. Second, U.S. citizenship is a hard prerequisite for the vast majority of roles, because most contracts include either clearance requirements or U.S. person flow-down clauses. Third, the company hires aggressively from the veteran community: military experience, particularly in maintenance, logistics, intelligence, special operations, and cyber, maps directly onto Amentum's contract portfolio and is treated as a meaningful credential. Fourth, the post-merger organization is still integrating, which means hiring managers and recruiters from the legacy Amentum, legacy PAE (which the prior Amentum acquired in 2022), and legacy Jacobs CMS sides may approach interviews and resume review somewhat differently. Understanding which side of the house a particular requisition came from can help you tailor your preparation. This guide walks through the application process end to end, with specific guidance for the Workday applicant tracking system, resume formatting that survives both ATS parsing and human contracting officer review, interview preparation across technical and behavioral dimensions, and the security clearance and citizenship realities that shape every Amentum hiring decision.

Application Process

  1. 1
    Search the Amentum careers portal at careers

    Search the Amentum careers portal at careers.amentum.com, which redirects to the Workday-powered job board at pae.wd1.myworkdayjobs.com/Amentum_Careers. The 'pae' subdomain is a legacy artifact from the 2022 PAE acquisition and remains the canonical URL even after the Jacobs CMS merger.

  2. 2
    Filter aggressively before applying

    Filter aggressively before applying. The portal exposes facets for clearance level, job category, location, and time type. Applying to ten well-matched requisitions will almost always outperform applying to fifty loosely matched ones, because Amentum recruiters often work specific contracts and judge fit narrowly.

  3. 3
    Read the requisition's clearance line carefully

    Read the requisition's clearance line carefully. Listings will specify whether a clearance is 'required to start,' 'must be obtainable,' or 'preferred.' Required-to-start means you cannot be considered without an active, in-scope clearance at that level on the day you apply.

  4. 4
    Create a Workday candidate account using a personal email address you check regu

    Create a Workday candidate account using a personal email address you check regularly. The Workday system sends time-sensitive interview scheduling and offer correspondence, and missing a 48-hour response window is a common reason applications stall.

  5. 5
    Upload a clean PDF or DOCX resume

    Upload a clean PDF or DOCX resume. Workday's resume parser will pre-fill the work history, education, and skills sections of the application form. Always review and correct the parsed fields manually, because parsing errors on dates, employer names, and clearance details are common and create downstream confusion.

  6. 6
    Complete the full Workday application form even if it duplicates resume content

    Complete the full Workday application form even if it duplicates resume content. Recruiters and hiring managers often filter and search inside Workday using the structured fields, not the attached resume, so a sparse application can hide your candidacy from the very people who would otherwise champion you.

  7. 7
    Disclose clearance status accurately in the dedicated clearance section

    Disclose clearance status accurately in the dedicated clearance section. List the level (Public Trust, Secret, Top Secret, TS/SCI), the adjudicating agency (DoD CAF, DOE, OPM, etc.), the investigation type (Tier 3, Tier 5, SSBI, T5R), and the date of last reinvestigation. If you have polygraph coverage (CI Poly or Full Scope Poly), state it explicitly.

  8. 8
    Indicate U

    Indicate U.S. citizenship status truthfully. The vast majority of Amentum requisitions are restricted to U.S. citizens because of contract clauses, ITAR/EAR considerations, or clearance eligibility rules. A small number of overseas roles may accept dual citizens or third-country nationals, but these are exceptions.

  9. 9
    Submit voluntary self-identification forms (race, gender, veteran status, disabi

    Submit voluntary self-identification forms (race, gender, veteran status, disability status). As a federal contractor subject to OFCCP oversight, Amentum is required to invite this information. Veterans should self-identify because veteran status is genuinely relevant to many Amentum contracts and is treated as a positive signal.

  10. 10
    Expect a recruiter screen within one to three weeks for active requisitions, lon

    Expect a recruiter screen within one to three weeks for active requisitions, longer for proposal-contingent positions. Many Amentum job postings are tied to active proposal pursuits or contract recompetes; if you hear that an offer is 'contingent on contract award,' that is normal in GovCon and not a red flag.

  11. 11
    Prepare for a clearance verification step before any final offer

    Prepare for a clearance verification step before any final offer. Amentum's security team will validate your clearance through the appropriate system (DISS for DoD, Scattered Castles for IC) and confirm in-scope status. Be ready to provide your previous Facility Security Officer's contact information.

  12. 12
    Receive a written contingent offer that typically depends on (1) clearance verif

    Receive a written contingent offer that typically depends on (1) clearance verification, (2) successful drug screen, (3) background check, and (4) for some contracts, customer badging approval. The customer badging step can take anywhere from days to months depending on the agency.

Resume Tips for Amentum Holdings

recommended

Lead with clearance status in the header

Lead with clearance status in the header. A line such as 'Active TS/SCI with CI Polygraph (DoD CAF, T5R 2023)' immediately above your contact information removes ambiguity for the recruiter and the Workday parser. For uncleared roles, state 'U.S. Citizen, Clearance-Eligible.'

recommended

Use a single-column, plain-text resume in DOCX or PDF format

Use a single-column, plain-text resume in DOCX or PDF format. Avoid tables, text boxes, headers, footers, columns, and graphical elements. Workday's parser is competent but not infallible, and complex layouts routinely produce garbled work history fields that hurt your candidacy.

recommended

Write in standard reverse-chronological format

Write in standard reverse-chronological format. Functional and hybrid resumes consistently parse poorly in Workday and also raise concerns with federal hiring managers, who are trained to look for unbroken employment timelines and clear date ranges.

recommended

Use plain-text bullets that begin with a strong action verb and quantify impact

Use plain-text bullets that begin with a strong action verb and quantify impact where possible. 'Led a team of 14 system administrators supporting 3,200 endpoints across two SCIFs, achieving 99.7 percent availability' is far more compelling than 'Responsible for IT support.'

recommended

Mirror requisition language exactly

Mirror requisition language exactly. If the job posting says 'Cybersecurity Analyst' and your last title was 'Information Security Specialist,' add the requisition phrasing as a parenthetical or in your skills section. Workday keyword matching is literal.

recommended

Spell out acronyms on first use

Spell out acronyms on first use. 'Continuity of Operations (COOP),' 'Joint Worldwide Intelligence Communications System (JWICS),' 'Risk Management Framework (RMF).' Recruiters may not be deep technical SMEs, and acronym-only resumes get filtered out at the screening stage.

recommended

List relevant DoD 8570/8140 certifications prominently if applying to cyber, IT,

List relevant DoD 8570/8140 certifications prominently if applying to cyber, IT, or cybersecurity roles. Security+, CISSP, CySA+, CCNA Security, GIAC, CEH, and similar certifications often appear as hard contract requirements that recruiters filter on.

recommended

For nuclear, environmental, or DOE work, list radiation worker training, HAZWOPE

For nuclear, environmental, or DOE work, list radiation worker training, HAZWOPER (29 CFR 1910.120), DOE-specific qualifications, and any reactor operator certifications. These are non-negotiable for many DOE EM and NNSA contracts.

recommended

Veterans should translate military experience into civilian terminology while pr

Veterans should translate military experience into civilian terminology while preserving rank and MOS/AFSC/rate information. 'U.S. Army, Sergeant First Class (SFC, E-7), MOS 35F Intelligence Analyst, 2014-2024' communicates seniority, specialty, and tenure all at once.

recommended

Include a dedicated 'Security Clearance' section near the top with level, adjudi

Include a dedicated 'Security Clearance' section near the top with level, adjudication date, scope, and any polygraph coverage. Federal recruiters scan for this section first, and burying clearance information in a job description costs you visibility.

recommended

Include a 'Contracts and Programs' section if you have prior GovCon experience

Include a 'Contracts and Programs' section if you have prior GovCon experience. Naming the customer agency, program of record, and your role on the contract helps Amentum hiring managers immediately understand the scale and sensitivity of your prior work.

recommended

Keep length proportional to experience

Keep length proportional to experience. Two pages is appropriate for most candidates; three to four pages is acceptable for senior technical or program management roles with 15-plus years of experience and a long contract history.

ATS System: Workday Recruiting

Amentum uses Workday Recruiting as its applicant tracking system, hosted at pae.wd1.myworkdayjobs.com/Amentum_Careers. The 'pae' tenant subdomain is a legacy artifact from the PAE acquisition that Amentum (then private) completed in 2022, and the tenant name was retained after the 2024 Jacobs CMS merger. Workday is the dominant ATS in the federal contracting space and is also used by many of Amentum's peers, including Leidos and SAIC. The system parses uploaded resumes into structured candidate profiles, runs keyword and Boolean searches for recruiters, and manages the full requisition-to-offer workflow including clearance disclosure fields, EEO/OFCCP self-identification, and offer letter generation.

  • Submit resumes as plain DOCX or PDF; avoid LaTeX-generated PDFs with unusual font encoding because Workday's parser sometimes mishandles them.
  • Always review the auto-parsed fields for work history, education, dates, and skills after upload; correct any parsing errors manually before submitting.
  • Complete every section of the Workday application form, not just the resume upload, because recruiters often filter candidates using the structured fields rather than the attached document.
  • Use the same email address across applications so the system links your application history; creating duplicate Workday profiles can fragment your record and create internal confusion.
  • Set Workday job alerts for the specific clearance level, location, and job family you target; new requisitions get filled fast in active programs and the alert system is materially faster than manual searches.
  • If you are a returning candidate, log in rather than starting fresh, because Workday preserves your prior application history and any prior recruiter notes.

Interview Culture

Amentum's interview process is conventional GovCon and tends to be straightforward, professional, and contract-focused rather than theatrical or elaborate.

After the recruiter screen, candidates typically face one to three rounds of interviews, depending on seniority and contract type. The first technical round is usually a thirty-to-sixty-minute conversation with the hiring manager, who is most often a program manager or technical lead actively running the contract you would join. Expect questions calibrated to the specific work, not abstract whiteboard puzzles. A systems engineer interviewing for a NASA Goddard ground systems role will be asked about ground software, telemetry, and integration testing. A nuclear operations technician interviewing for a Hanford or Savannah River Site role will be asked about radiation protection, work control documents, and DOE Order compliance. A cybersecurity analyst interviewing for an IC contract will be asked about incident response, RMF, ATO packages, and the specific tools the contract uses. Behavioral questions are nearly universal and tend to follow the STAR (Situation, Task, Action, Result) format. Common themes include working under classified constraints, handling competing priorities under deadline pressure, navigating government customer relationships, mentoring junior staff, and adhering to security protocols when convenience would suggest otherwise. Amentum interviewers care about whether you can be trusted with sensitive work and whether you will represent the contractor professionally in front of the government customer, because contractor performance directly drives contract retention at the next recompete. Cultural fit at Amentum is less about Silicon Valley signaling and more about reliability, humility, and customer focus. The customer is the federal government, and successful Amentum employees understand that the customer's mission, schedule, and standards govern the work. Candidates who present as overly polished, who interrupt, or who position themselves above the customer relationship tend to fare poorly. Candidates who can speak fluently about specific past programs, name customer agencies and offices accurately, and demonstrate genuine subject matter depth tend to fare well. For roles requiring active clearances, expect a clearance verification step that runs in parallel with the interview process or immediately after the verbal offer. The Amentum security team will request your information to look you up in DISS or Scattered Castles. For some Intelligence Community contracts, the customer agency itself runs a separate badging interview and adjudication that can take additional weeks or months. Salary negotiation at Amentum is meaningful but bounded. GovCon contracts price labor categories at fixed rates that the government has approved, so the recruiter generally knows the upper end of the band before the conversation starts. Pushing slightly above the initial offer is reasonable, particularly if you bring a scarce skill set (full-scope poly, specific certifications, deep program experience), but expecting twenty or thirty percent above the offer is unrealistic. Benefits, relocation, and sign-on bonuses are usually more flexible than base salary. Remote work eligibility varies dramatically by contract. Some roles are fully remote, some are hybrid with required SCIF time, and many are strictly on-site at customer facilities. Always clarify the work location and schedule expectations during the first interview, because changing this after offer is generally not possible.

What Amentum Holdings Looks For

  • An active and in-scope U.S. government security clearance at the level the requisition specifies, with verifiable adjudication in DISS or Scattered Castles.
  • U.S. citizenship for the vast majority of roles, with a smaller subset of overseas positions accepting dual citizens or other categories under specific contract terms.
  • Direct, demonstrable experience on the specific customer mission or a closely analogous one; generic technical strength without GovCon context is often a weaker signal than narrower direct experience.
  • Military service or prior federal civilian service, particularly in maintenance, logistics, intelligence, cyber, special operations, or nuclear specialties that map onto Amentum's contract portfolio.
  • Required certifications on day one for cyber and IT roles, including DoD 8570/8140 baseline certifications such as Security+, CISSP, CySA+, CCNA Security, and the appropriate IAT/IAM level.
  • For nuclear, DOE, and NNSA roles, current radiation worker training, HAZWOPER 40, DOE-specific qualifications, and any required reactor or facility-specific certifications.
  • Clean, current background suitable for federal employment, including no recent foreign travel issues, no significant financial problems, and no recent drug use that would disqualify under DOD 5220.22-M or equivalent guidelines.
  • A track record of professional reliability and customer-facing maturity, because Amentum employees represent the company in front of federal customers daily and contract performance scores depend heavily on individual conduct.
  • Willingness to relocate or work at the customer site for site-specific contracts; many of the most attractive technical roles are not remote-eligible because the work occurs in SCIFs or on classified networks.
  • For overseas positions, willingness and medical fitness to deploy to potentially austere or hostile-fire environments, with valid passport, current medical clearances, and any required immunizations.

Frequently Asked Questions

What ATS does Amentum use?
Amentum uses Workday Recruiting, hosted at pae.wd1.myworkdayjobs.com/Amentum_Careers. The 'pae' subdomain is a legacy artifact from the prior Amentum's 2022 acquisition of PAE, and the tenant was retained through the 2024 Jacobs CMS merger. The Workday job board is the canonical destination for all Amentum requisitions and is reached either directly or via redirect from careers.amentum.com.
Do I need a security clearance to work at Amentum?
A substantial majority of Amentum's positions require an active U.S. government security clearance at some level: Public Trust, Secret, Top Secret, or TS/SCI with counterintelligence or full-scope polygraph. A subset of roles in corporate functions, commercial work, and certain civil agency programs do not require clearance, but if you are uncleared, you should filter for those specifically. Some requisitions accept clearance-eligible candidates for sponsorship, particularly for high-volume programs and entry-level technical roles.
Does Amentum sponsor work visas or hire non-U.S. citizens?
For positions based in the United States, Amentum almost exclusively hires U.S. citizens because contract clauses, security clearance eligibility rules, and ITAR/EAR restrictions tied to defense and intelligence work typically require it. The company does not generally sponsor H-1B or other employment-based visas for cleared roles. Some overseas positions, particularly those tied to embassy support, base operations, or international training programs, may accept dual citizens, third-country nationals, or local hires under specific contract terms.
How long does the Amentum hiring process take?
For active funded requisitions, the typical timeline runs four to eight weeks from application to verbal offer, plus an additional two to twelve weeks for clearance verification, drug screen, background check, and customer badging. For proposal-contingent positions, where the requisition depends on Amentum winning a pending contract, the timeline can stretch to several months and start dates are conditional on award. For Intelligence Community roles requiring customer-specific badging or polygraph, the post-offer timeline can extend further depending on agency processing.
What happened with the Jacobs merger and how does it affect hiring?
In September 2024, Amentum and Jacobs Solutions completed a Reverse Morris Trust transaction that combined Jacobs Critical Mission Solutions (CMS) and Cyber & Intelligence Solutions with the prior private Amentum, creating the publicly traded company that now trades on NYSE as AMTM. From a hiring perspective, the practical effect is that Amentum's portfolio expanded significantly in cyber, intelligence, and engineering services, and the combined organization is still integrating processes including some elements of recruiting workflow. Candidates may notice that recruiter style and interview cadence vary depending on which legacy organization (Amentum, PAE, or Jacobs CMS) originally owned the contract.
What is Amentum's salary range and benefits package?
Salaries are constrained by approved government labor category rates because most Amentum positions are billed against federal contracts at fixed hourly or fully loaded rates. Within those constraints, technical and cleared roles tend to pay competitively for the GovCon market, with cleared engineers, cyber analysts, and program managers commanding meaningful premiums for active TS/SCI and polygraph coverage. Benefits typically include medical, dental, and vision coverage, a 401(k) with company match, paid time off, life and disability insurance, and tuition assistance. Some contracts offer additional incentives for hardship locations, deployment, or scarce skill sets.
Is Amentum a good fit for veterans transitioning out of the military?
Yes. Amentum is one of the most veteran-friendly large employers in the federal contracting space. The company's contract portfolio in maintenance, logistics, intelligence, special operations support, base operations, and nuclear work maps directly onto military occupational specialties, and veteran experience is treated as a genuine credential rather than a checkbox. The company participates in transition programs and Skillbridge-style internships, and many program managers and technical leads are themselves veterans. Self-identifying as a veteran on the application is recommended.
Are remote and hybrid roles available at Amentum?
Some roles are fully remote, some are hybrid, and many are strictly on-site at customer facilities. Work location is determined by the contract, not by company-wide policy, so remote eligibility varies dramatically across requisitions. SCIF-required work, classified network access, and customer-collocated programs are almost always on-site. Corporate functions, certain unclassified IT work, and specific engineering roles may be remote or hybrid. Always confirm location and schedule expectations during the first interview because changes after offer are typically not possible.
What is Amentum's biggest customer base?
Amentum serves the full breadth of the U.S. federal government, with the largest concentrations of work at the Department of Defense (Army, Navy, Air Force, and combatant commands), the Department of Energy (Environmental Management and the National Nuclear Security Administration), NASA (multiple centers), the Intelligence Community, and the Department of State. The company also supports the FAA, DHS, DOJ, and many other civil agencies. International customers include allied governments and multilateral institutions, particularly in training and capacity-building work.
How should I prepare for an Amentum technical interview?
Research the specific contract or program the requisition supports if it is publicly identifiable, and study the customer agency's mission, current priorities, and recent news. Prepare STAR-format behavioral examples covering classified work, deadline pressure, customer interaction, mentoring, and adherence to security protocols. Be ready to discuss your relevant certifications, past program experience, and clearance status in detail. Avoid speculating about classified information you have worked on; describe scope and impact at the unclassified level only. Bring thoughtful questions about the team structure, customer relationship, contract length, and recompete schedule, all of which signal that you understand the GovCon business model.

Open Positions

Amentum Holdings currently has 5 open positions.

Check Your Resume Before Applying → View 5 open positions at Amentum Holdings

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Sources

  1. Amentum Careers Portal (Workday) —
  2. Amentum Holdings, Inc. - Corporate Website —
  3. Amentum and Jacobs Critical Mission Solutions Merger Announcement —
  4. NYSE Listing - Amentum Holdings (AMTM) —
  5. U.S. Department of Defense - Security Clearance Process —
  6. DoD 8570/8140 Cybersecurity Workforce Certification Requirements —
  7. Department of Energy Environmental Management Program —
  8. Workday Recruiting - Candidate Experience Documentation —
  9. Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP) —