Senior Systems Engineer

Senior 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.

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. We advance engineering rigor, operational relevance, and mission effectiveness across complex systems and enterprises, with core focus areas in 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 Senior Systems Engineer to support government customer mission and program needs across complex, evolving technical environments. The selected candidate will help define, design, architect, integrate, test, and transition complex systems using traditional systems engineering and Model-Based Systems Engineering methods. This position requires the ability to collaborate across technical, operational, acquisition, and program management organizations. The Systems Engineer will translate stakeholder needs into executable system concepts, architectures, requirements, technical roadmaps, integration plans, acquisition artifacts, and engineering recommendations.

• Apply systems engineering principles throughout the system development lifecycle, including mission and stakeholder analysis, concept development, system design, architecture definition, requirements development, integration, verification, validation, deployment planning, and technical transition
• Translate customer needs, operational constraints, capability gaps, and program objectives into system concepts, functional designs, technical approaches, and implementation options
• Develop, assess, and refine system architectures, including operational views, functional architectures, logical and physical architectures, interfaces, data flows, dependencies, and integration points
• Apply traditional systems engineering and MBSE methods to capture system behavior, structure, requirements, interfaces, constraints, verification relationships, risks, trade space, and technical decisions
• Facilitate stakeholder interviews, workshops, technical exchanges, and working groups to elicit, analyze, document, and validate mission, system, product, interface, performance, security, and operational requirements
• Develop clear, testable, traceable, and verifiable requirements and maintain relationships among stakeholder needs, system requirements, design elements, interfaces, and verification methods.
• Conduct engineering studies, trade analyses, alternatives analyses, and gap assessments to evaluate current-state systems, operational processes, technology limitations, interoperability challenges, cost and schedule considerations, and opportunities for improvement
• Support system integration, test, verification, validation, deployment, and technical transition activities
• Develop integration sequencing, test objectives, verification methods, success criteria, interface dependencies, readiness criteria, and transition plans
• Identify and manage technical risks, issues, assumptions, dependencies, and opportunities throughout the engineering lifecycle
• Support technical reviews, including requirements reviews, architecture reviews, design reviews, test readiness reviews, and deployment readiness reviews
• Advise government customers, program managers, and technical leaders on capability needs, technical priorities, system roadmaps, technology insertion opportunities, acquisition strategies, and engineering approaches
• Support acquisition planning and execution by contributing to Statements of Work, Statements of Objectives, Performance Work Statements, market research, acquisition strategies, evaluation criteria, technical evaluation plans, vendor assessments, and source-selection documentation
• Collaborate with multidisciplinary teams, including software, hardware, cybersecurity, cloud, data, network, test, operations, and program management personnel
• Develop and present architecture products, technical briefings, decision papers, trade-study results, requirements packages, interface documentation, engineering plans, and technical recommendations
• Communicate complex technical concepts clearly to technical and non-technical stakeholders

Basic Qualifications:

• Typically requires a minimum of 5 years of related experience with a Bachelor's degree; or 3 years and a Master's degree; or a PhD with relevant experience who can immediately contribute at this job step; or equivalent combination of related education and work experience.
• Experience applying systems engineering practices to complex technical, operational, or mission-focused systems
• Experience with one or more of the following: system design, system architecture modeling, requirements development, interface analysis, integration planning, verification and validation, and technical documentation
• Familiarity with both MBSE and traditional systems engineering approaches such as requirements analysis, functional decomposition, interface control, trade studies, risk analysis, technical reviews, and engineering decision support
• Ability to develop or review architecture products, requirements specifications, trade studies, technical plans, acquisition artifacts, and engineering recommendations
• Ability to work directly with government sponsors, program managers, technical teams, acquisition stakeholders, and mission users
• Strong analytical, verbal, and written communication skills, including the ability to define ambiguous problems, structure technical options, and brief technical concepts to both technical and non-technical audiences
• Ability to work both collaboratively and independently in a dynamic sponsor environment
• Willingness to work at various sponsor locations as required
• Must have an active Secret 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/week on site

Preferred Qualifications:

• Degree or advanced degree in engineering, systems engineering, data science, or related field.
• Active Top-Secret clearance
• Experience applying MBSE methods using modeling languages and tools, such as SysML, Cameo, MagicDraw, Rhapsody, Sparx EA, or similar platforms
• Experience developing SysML diagrams, including block definition diagrams, internal block diagrams, activity diagrams, sequence diagrams, state machine diagrams, requirement diagrams, and parametric models
• Experience developing or applying systems architecture frameworks, architecture views, interface models, operational models, or enterprise architecture products
• Experience advising the federal government on acquisition lifecycle activities, including Statement of Work/Statement of Objectives (SOW/SOO) development, market research, acquisition planning, technical evaluations, source selection support, or adoption of innovative acquisition approaches
• Experience supporting system integration, test planning, verification and validation, deployment readiness planning, or technical transition of mission systems
• Experience with digital engineering, mission engineering, enterprise architecture, software-intensive systems, cloud-based systems, data platforms, cybersecurity, or command-and-control systems
• Experience leading technical tasks, facilitating stakeholder workshops, coordinating multidisciplinary engineering teams, or advising senior technical and program leadership
• Experience researching, assessing, prototyping, integrating, or supporting the transition of mission emerging technologies
• Experience with systems that have security, resiliency, interoperability, availability, performance, or regulatory requirements

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

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

Salary compensation range and midpoint: $121,200 - $151,500 - $181,800 Annual

Work Location Type: Onsite

It is unlawful in Massachusetts to require or administer a lie detector test as a condition of employment or continued employment. An employer who violates this law shall be subject to criminal penalties and civil liability. Commitment to Non-Discrimination

All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to disability, status as a protected veteran or any other status protected by applicable federal, state, local or international law.

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