Principal Space Systems Engineer

At MITRE, your passion fuels work that impacts our nation and improves lives. This is where your skills strengthen national security, cybersecurity, health, transportation, and citizen services. We’re a nonprofit engineering, applied research, and advanced technology organization working in the public interest. With objectivity and integrity at our core, we lead federally funded research and development centers for U.S. government agencies – collaborating with industry and academia to deliver integrated, high-impact solutions that advance our nation’s health, security, and prosperity. Our people tackle the toughest technical challenges, supported by competitive benefits, meaningful career development, and a culture of innovation, collaboration, and technical excellence. Choose MITRE for a career with purpose — and help shape the future.

Department Summary

The Systems and Operations Department (L626) within MITRE’s Systems Engineering Division in the Center for Engineering and Analysis delivers innovative, mission-focused solutions using a multidisciplinary systems engineering approach to address sponsor challenges critical to national security missions. Our core focus areas include mission integration, lifecycle systems engineering, and acquisition systems engineering. Our teams develop, assess, and transition engineering solutions, provide strategic technical vision, and deliver data-informed recommendations that enable sponsor mission success from tactical through enterprise levels.

Roles & Responsibilities

The Systems and Operations Department is seeking a Principal Space Systems Engineer to serve as a senior technical authority and trusted advisor for complex national security challenges in the space domain. This individual contributor role will shape mission, architecture, acquisition, and investment decisions across individual systems, integrated mission capabilities, and enterprise portfolios. The selected candidate will establish technical direction for high-priority, cross-organizational initiatives, resolve complex integration challenges, and align sponsors and multidisciplinary teams around executable strategies and transition paths. The successful candidate will combine broad systems thinking, recognized technical depth, and strategic judgment to translate ambiguous enterprise challenges into enduring operational outcomes. The selected candidate will be expected to:

• Serve as a principal technical advisor and primary technical interface for senior sponsors and MITRE leaders. Shape mission priorities, requirements, acquisition approaches, enterprise architectures, investment strategies, and implementation decisions across national security space portfolios
• Establish and lead multidisciplinary efforts that integrate systems of systems engineering, enterprise architecture, mission engineering, operational assessment efforts, and other relevant technical and operational disciplines. Direct mission thread analyses, capability and force design studies, architecture trades, scenario development, and concept evaluation across multiple systems, programs, and mission partners
• Provide technical authority across the end-to-end system lifecycle, including concept development, architecture definition, requirements prioritization, system design, interface definition, integration, verification and validation, deployment, operational employment, and transition. Establish technical baselines, integration strategies, decision criteria, and risk management approaches
• Lead the integration of sensing, command and control, battle management, communications, data, cyber, software, and mission applications into resilient operational capabilities. Identify and resolve dependencies, interface challenges, technical risks, and organizational barriers that span programs and mission areas
• Identify strategic capability gaps and high-value areas for innovation and investment. Guide the development and transition of prototypes, experiments, modeling and simulation capabilities, digital engineering environments, data strategies, and artificial intelligence or machine learning applications that address priority mission needs
• Build consensus and influence decisions across sponsors, mission operators, acquisition organizations, contractors, industry, and FFRDC partners, and geographically distributed MITRE teams. Represent MITRE in senior technical and executive forums and advocate objective, evidence-based recommendations
• Strengthen MITRE's technical capabilities by mentoring senior technical staff, developing reusable methods and standards, leading independent technical reviews, sharing knowledge across organizational boundaries, and aligning technical work programs with department, division, and sponsor outcomes
• Lead, multidisciplinary, and cross-organizational technical initiatives involving multiple systems, programs, stakeholders, and mission areas
• Establish technical direction, define engineering approaches, integrate results from multiple teams, resolve conflicting technical priorities, and deliver recommendations for senior decision makers

Basic Qualifications

• Minimum of 10 years of related experience with a Bachelor’s degree; or 8 years and a Master’s degree; or a PhD with 5 years’ experience; or equivalent combination of related education and work experience
• Degree in Aerospace Engineering, Systems Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Computer Science, Mathematics, Physics, or a related technical discipline
• Recognized technical depth and leadership in applying systems engineering, mission engineering, and/or systems of systems engineering to complex space or national security mission systems with a demonstrated ability to think strategically about and implement solutions for technical, operational, acquisition, and organizational challenges
• Deep technical expertise in one or more of the following space-focused areas: space surveillance sensors, Space Domain Awareness, command and control, battle management command and control, space protection and resiliency, space threats and effects chains, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, satellite communications, ground data transport and processing, enterprise data architectures, Space Control, astrodynamics, or space mission analysis
• Demonstrated experience as a strategic space systems of systems thought leader, enterprise architect, chief engineer, or senior technical advisor focused on one or more of the following areas: the end-to-end system lifecycle, including concept development, system and enterprise architecture, requirements, interfaces, design, integration, test, verification and validation, deployment, operational transition, and technical risk management
• Experience conducting, applying, reviewing, or directing one or more of the following: systems of systems architecture trades, mission thread analyses, operational assessments, scenario-driven evaluations, quantitative analyses of complex space mission capabilities, physics-based modeling and simulation, digital engineering, or model-based systems engineering.
• Strong technical writing, executive communication, collaboration, negotiation, and consensus-building skills. Ability to communicate complex concepts, findings, risks, tradeoffs, and recommendations to senior technical, operational, acquisition, and executive audiences
• Ability to establish trusted relationships and lead collaborative activities involving government sponsors, mission users, acquisition stakeholders, contractors, industry partners, research organizations, and geographically distributed MITRE teams
• Must have an active Top Secret/SCI U.S Government issued Security Clearance. Per the U.S. Government’s eligibility requirements, you must be a U.S Citizen to be considered for a security clearance.
• This position requires a minimum of 4 days a week on-site

Preferred Qualifications

• Broad understanding of national security space missions, operational organizations, acquisition organizations, mission portfolios, stakeholder relationships, and the roles of government, industry, Federally Funded Research and Development Centers (FFRDCs), and commercial partners
• Experience leading mission engineering, force or capability design, operational analysis, mission thread development, and architecture assessment activities that span multiple programs and independently managed systems
• Experience developing horizontally scalable architectures and integrating software-intensive systems, data platforms, communications networks, cybersecurity capabilities, modeling and simulation environments, artificial intelligence or machine learning, and rapid prototypes
• Experience with rapid or agile acquisition, iterative system integration, developmental and operational testing, technology insertion, and transition of new capabilities into operational environments
• Demonstrated record of influencing senior sponsor decisions for government acquisitions and/or mission organizations through objective technical analysis, architecture recommendations, acquisition guidance, executive briefings, technical publications, participation in senior technical review boards, requirements prioritization, acquisition strategy, technical baseline development, integration planning, test and evaluation, technology insertion, and transition to operational user
• Demonstrated ability to mentor technical leaders, develop organizational engineering capabilities, establish technical quality standards, and build communities of practice across organizational boundaries

This requisition requires the candidate to have a minimum of the following clearance(s)

Top Secret/SCI

This requisition requires the hired candidate to have or obtain, within one year from the date of hire, the following clearance(s)

Top Secret/SCI

Salary compensation range and midpoint

$162,400 - $203,000 - $243,600 Annual

Work Location Type

Onsite

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