Weapons Systems Test Engineer

Salary: $100,000 - 245,000 per year Requirements:

• Bachelors degree in engineering, mathematics, physics, or a closely related technical discipline.
• At least 3 years of systems test engineering experience supporting the development, test, and evaluation of complex systems, including areas such as requirements analysis, system architecture understanding, weapon or missile system development cycles, verification and validation, and ground or flight test planning and execution.
• Proven ability to manage multiple complex program assignments independently with minimal oversight.
• Strong initiative and a readiness to learn and build new capabilities.
• Excellent verbal and written communication skills, along with strong critical thinking abilities.
• Demonstrated success collaborating with and leading multidisciplinary teams, including industry and government stakeholders.
• Willingness and ability to travel periodically to sponsor, contractor, and test locations (15–20% of the time).
• Ability to obtain the associated Special Access Program level access.
• Ability to obtain an Interim Secret clearance by the start date and ultimately qualify for Top Secret/SCI access; U.S. citizenship is required for classified access eligibility.
• Preferred: advanced degree in engineering, mathematics, physics, or a related technical field, and/or completion of a formal T&E program.
• Preferred: at least 5 years of systems test engineering experience in weapons or missile system development and evaluation.
• Preferred: familiarity with modeling and simulation tools such as STK, TAOS, Matlab, or scripting languages like Python, and the ability to analyze outputs.
• Preferred: experience with missile-program activities such as environmental testing, interoperability testing, missile test ranges, weapon development programs, or test range instrumentation.
• Preferred: active Top Secret SCI clearance.

• We lead and support multidisciplinary teams made up of government sponsors, government laboratories, industry partners, and other UARCs/FFRDCs across requirements decomposition, concept and technology development, acquisition, test planning and execution, system evaluation, post-test data analysis, decision support, and risk assessment.
• We assess weapon system requirements, architecture, and design to determine their impact on test execution and scenario planning.
• We develop and maintain test strategies and objectives for ground tests, flight tests, experiments, demonstrations, and software simulations to evaluate performance and verification of advanced strike weapon systems.
• We create test requirements, objectives, plans, and schedules for ground and flight testing in support of weapon system development.
• We evaluate weapon system performance predictions to understand preliminary performance and range safety implications for flight-test feasibility.
• We coordinate test resource use internally and externally, ensuring facilities, personnel, and technical needs are aligned across stakeholders.
• We analyze test outcomes to evaluate system performance, identify gaps, determine root causes, and recommend design or test improvements for future development.
• We prepare formal presentations and reports that communicate technical recommendations, solutions, and analysis results to sponsors and stakeholders.

• Support
• Matlab
• Python
• LESS
• SAP
• Security

More:

We are the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL), and our Weapons Systems Engineering and Survivability Group (KVV) within the Force Projection Sector is seeking a highly motivated Weapons Systems Test Engineer to help plan and execute testing for advanced strike weapon systems. Our work supports rapid prototyping, system integration, field experimentation, and ground and flight test activities. We offer a vibrant and welcoming culture where people can grow, collaborate with strong teammates, and bring new ideas forward. Our benefits include robust education assistance, strong retirement contributions, work/life balance, and a comprehensive package with medical, dental, vision, life insurance, disability coverage, paid time off, flexible spending accounts, training and development, and other compensation opportunities. Our campus is located in the Baltimore-Washington metro area, and applications are accepted on a rolling basis.

last updated 35 week of 2026