CHIEF SYSTEMS ENGINEER

Summary


You will serve as the Chief Systems Engineer in the Submarine Direct Reporting Portfolio Manager (DRPM SUBS) Chief Operating Officer Office. You will serve as the ultimate technical authority and strategic visionary for the engineering enterprise, responsible for the overarching architecture, technical integrity, and successful integration of the nation's most complex and critical defense acquisition programs.
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Summary


You will serve as the Chief Systems Engineer in the Submarine Direct Reporting Portfolio Manager (DRPM SUBS) Chief Operating Officer Office. You will serve as the ultimate technical authority and strategic visionary for the engineering enterprise, responsible for the overarching architecture, technical integrity, and successful integration of the nation's most complex and critical defense acquisition programs.
Learn more about this agency


Overview
Accepting applications

Posted this month • Apply in 2 days


Due by 11:59 p.m. ET on July 13, 2026


Location


1 vacancy in the following location:

Washington Navy Yard, DC


No matching locations found.


Work site options
Telework eligible Yes-This position is eligible for ad-hoc/situational telework at the discretion of management. Remote job No Relocation expenses reimbursed Yes-Relocation expenses (i.e. PCS) may be authorized in accordance with applicable travel regulations. Salary $186,207 - $228,000 per year
Actual salary may vary depending on the scope and the complexity of the qualifications and current compensation of the selectee.
Pay scale & grade
SL 00
Promotion potential None


Learn more about pay scale and grade


Pay scale and grade determines the salary of the job.


Work schedule Full-time Travel Required Occasional travel - You may be expected to travel for this position.

Appointment type Permanent


Occupations and job series

• 0801 General Engineering

Supervisory status No Federal service type This job is in the Competitive Service Represented by a union No

Drug test Yes Security clearance Sensitive Compartmented Information Financial disclosure required Yes
Some jobs require financial disclosure to identify conflicts of interests.


Announcement number ST-12993422-26-SRP Control number 874415900


This job is open to
Federal employees - Competitive service

Current federal employees whose agencies follow the U.S. Office of Personnel Management's hiring rules and pay scales.


Land and base management

Current or former employees of a base management agency.


Veterans

Veterans of the U.S. Armed Forces or a spouse, widow, widower or parent of a veteran, who may be eligible for derived preference


Military spouses

Military spouses of active duty service members or whose spouse is 100 percent disabled or died on active duty.


Individuals with disabilities

Individuals who are eligible under Schedule A.


Clarification from the agency


Current permanent employees and VEOA eligibles.

Duties

• You will serve as the organization's senior technical authority and final decision-maker on complex engineering matters, including system architectures, technical requirement trades, and high-risk technical waivers.
• You will resolve critical engineering disputes across major defense acquisition programs.
• You will provide executive leadership and strategic direction to the engineering workforce, fostering a culture of technical excellence, rigor, and innovation while ensuring alignment with mission objectives and acquisition priorities.
• You will direct the development and governance of enterprise System-of-Systems (SoS) architectures to ensure interoperability, scalability, resilience, and survivability across joint, coalition, and multi-domain environments.
• You will drive the enterprise-wide adoption of advanced engineering practices such as Model-Based Systems Engineering (MBSE), digital engineering, and agile methodologies to accelerate capability delivery and improve technical integration.
• You will be responsible for identifying, assessing, and directing the mitigation of critical technical risks that may impact cost, schedule, performance, or operational suitability.
• You will develop and deliver high-impact technical risk assessments and engineering briefings to senior Department of Defense leadership to support informed decision-making on design trade-offs and risk acceptance.
• You will design, implement, and oversee enterprise engineering strategies, technical baselines, and system architectures to enhance survivability, interoperability, and mission effectiveness.
• You will drive innovation through digital engineering environments, model-based approaches, and Modular Open Systems Architecture (MOSA) to improve capability delivery and industrial base integration.

Requirements
Conditions of employment

• Must be a US Citizen.
• Must be determined suitable for federal employment.
• Must participate in the direct deposit pay program.
• New employees to the Department of the Navy will be required to successfully pass the E-Verify employment verification check. To learn more about E-Verify, including your rights and responsibilities, visit e-verify.gov
• You will be required to complete ethics orientation within three months of appointment and submit a Public Financial Disclosure Report, OGE-278e within 30 days of appointment.
• Within the Department of Defense (DoD), the appointment of retired military members within 180 days immediately following retirement date to a civilian position is subject to the provisions of 5 United States Code 3326.
• Males born after 12-31-59 must be registered for Selective Service.
• This position may require travel from normal duty station to CONUS and OCONUS and may include remote or isolated sites. You must be able to travel on military and commercial aircraft for extended periods of time.
• Successful completion of a pre-employment drug test (including marijuana) is required. A tentative offer of employment will be rescinded if you fail to report to the drug test appointment or fail the test. You will be subject to random testing.
• You will be required to obtain and maintain an interim and/or final security clearance prior to entrance on duty. Failure to obtain and maintain the required level of clearance may result in the withdrawal of a job offer or removal.
• This position is covered under the Defense Acquisition Workforce Improvement Act (DAWIA). Certification in the Functional Area and Tier assigned to the position, along with Continuous Learning (CL) points, are required within established timeframes.
• This position is a designated Critical Acquisition Position (CAP). You must sign a three-year tenure agreement prior to assuming the position unless a tenure waiver is approved.
• This position is considered Key/Emergency-Essential. You will be required to provide immediate and continuing support to ensure the success of combat operations or the availability of combat-essential systems.
• This is a Mission Essential position. You will be required to ensure organization or facility continuity of operations and/or completion of tasks that are considered essential to the mission designated by a local or command decision.

Qualifications


Candidates should be committed to improving the efficiency of the Federal government, passionate about the ideals of our American republic, and committed to upholding the rule of law and the United States Constitution. Candidates will not be hired based on their race, sex, color, religion, or national origin.


To meet the minimum qualification requirements for this position, your resume must show that you possess the Technical Qualifications (TQ) related to this position - NOT TO EXCEED 2 PAGES. Resumes over the 2-page limit will be disqualified. Your resume should include examples of experience, education, and accomplishments applicable to the qualification(s). If your resume does not reflect demonstrated evidence of these qualifications, you may not receive consideration for the position.


TECHNICAL QUALIFICATIONS (TQs): Your resume should demonstrate accomplishments that would satisfy the technical qualifications:



TQ 1. Systems Engineering Leadership & Acquisition Lifecycle Management:
Demonstrated executive-level leadership as the senior technical authority for ACAT I or Major Defense Acquisition Programs (MDAPs), including oversight of systems engineering across the full acquisition life-cycle under DoD 5000 and JCIDS. This includes leading System Engineering Technical Reviews (e.g., Preliminary and Critical Design Reviews), making technical risk acceptance decisions, and balancing cost, schedule, and performance for largescale defense systems.



TQ 2. Digital Engineering, System-of-Systems Architecture & Technical Risk Integration:
Demonstrated expertise in architecting and integrating complex system-of-systems (SoS) using open systems architecture (OSA) and leading the transition to digital engineering environments leveraging Model-Based Systems Engineering (MBSE), SysML, and digital twins. This includes managing enterprise-level technical risk, integrating advanced technologies (e.g., AI, autonomous systems), and implementing DevSecOps, testing, and quality assurance frameworks to ensure secure and reliable system delivery.


Additional qualification information can be found from the following Office of Personnel Management website:

AND
0801 Professional Engineering Series


Experience refers to paid and unpaid experience, including volunteer work done through National Service programs (e.g., professional, philanthropic, religious, spiritual, community, student, social). Volunteer work helps build critical competencies, knowledge, and skills and can provide valuable training and experience that translates directly to paid employment.


Education


Applicants must meet the following positive education qualifications requirements of the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) Qualifications Standards Manual:



For 801 Professional Engineering Series:

A. Degree: Engineering. Successful completion of a bachelor's or higher engineering degree from an accredited college or university. To be acceptable, the program must: (1) lead to a bachelor's degree in a school of engineering with at least one program accredited by ABET ; or (2) include differential and integral calculus and courses (more advanced than first-year physics and chemistry) in five of the following seven areas of engineering science or physics: (a) statics, dynamics; (b) strength of materials (stress-strain relationships); (c) fluid mechanics, hydraulics; (d) thermodynamics; (e) electrical fields and circuits; (f) nature and properties of materials (relating particle and aggregate structure to properties); and (g) any other comparable area of fundamental engineering science or physics, such as optics, heat transfer, soil mechanics, or electronics. Such education must demonstrate the knowledge, skills, and abilities necessary to do the work of the position.
-or-

B. Combination of education and experience -- college-level education, training, and/or technical experience that furnished (1) a thorough knowledge of the physical and mathematical sciences underlying engineering, and (2) a good understanding, both theoretical and practical, of the engineering sciences and techniques and their applications to one of the branches of engineering. The adequacy of such background must be demonstrated by one of the following:

(I) Professional registration or licensure -- Current registration as an Engineer Intern (EI), Engineer in Training (EIT), or licensure as a Professional Engineer (PE) by any State, the District of Columbia, Guam, or Puerto Rico. Absent other means of qualifying under this standard, those applicants who achieved such registration by means other than written test (e.g., State grandfather or eminence provisions) are eligible only for positions that are within or closely related to the specialty field of their registration. For example, an applicant who attains registration through a State Board's eminence provision as a manufacturing engineer typically would be rated eligible only for manufacturing engineering positions; or

(II) Written Test -- Evidence of having successfully passed the Fundamentals of Engineering (FE) examination or any other written test required for professional registration by an engineering licensure board in the various States, the District of Columbia, Guam, and Puerto Rico; or

(III) Specified academic courses -- Successful completion of at least 60 semester hours of courses in the physical, mathematical, and engineering sciences and that included the courses specified in the basic requirements under paragraph A. The courses must be fully acceptable toward meeting the requirements of an engineering program as described in paragraph A; or

(IV) Related curriculum -- Successful completion of a curriculum leading to a bachelor's degree in an appropriate scientific field, e.g., engineering technology, physics, chemistry, architecture, computer science, mathematics, hydrology, or geology, may be accepted in lieu of a bachelor's degree in engineering, provided the applicant has had at least 1 year of professional engineering experience acquired under professional engineering supervision and guidance. Ordinarily there should be either an established plan of intensive training to develop professional engineering competence, or several years of prior professional engineering-type experience, e.g., in interdisciplinary positions. (The above examples of related curricula are not all inclusive.)



An advanced degree of Master's or Ph.D. in one of the educational fields listed above is highly desirable.


Additional information

This position is a Senior Level position in the federal government. Senior Level employees are in non-executive positions whose duties are broad and complex enough to be classified above GS 15 level. Senior level positions involve highly specialized and complex work.


This position is not covered by the Department of Defense Priority Placement Program.


Additional vacancies may be filled by this announcement.


A tentative offer of employment will be rescinded if the selectee fails to meet the pre-employment requirements, including failure to report to any of the scheduled appointments.


Federal annuitant information: The selection of an annuitant is subject to the Department of Defense and Department of the Navy policy on the employment of annuitants. Policy information may be found at: .


There are three key documents that contain important information about your rights and obligations. Please read and retain these documents:

• Noncriminal Justice Applicant's Privacy Rights , for those who undergo an FBI fingerprint-based criminal history record check for personnel vetting, which includes Rap Back,
• FD-258 Privacy Act Statement - FBI (this is the same statement used when your fingerprints are submitted as part of your background investigation), and
• SEAD-3-Reporting-U.pdf (dni.gov) , (applicable to those who hold a sensitive position or have eligibility for access to classified information)"

Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO) Policy Statement :

Employment Information Resources - Resource Center :

Males born after 12-31-1959 must be registered or exempt from Selective Service (see )

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Candidates should be committed to improving the efficiency of the Federal government, passionate about the ideals of our American republic, and committed to upholding the rule of law and the United States Constitution.

Benefits
A career with the U.S. government provides employees with a comprehensive benefits package. As a federal employee, you and your family will have access to a range of benefits that are designed to make your federal career very rewarding. Opens in a new window Learn more about federal benefits .


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Eligibility for benefits depends on the type of position you hold and whether your position is full-time, part-time or intermittent. Contact the hiring agency for more information on the specific benefits offered.