Principal Systems Engineer

Principal Systems Engineer

CHAOS Industries is redefining modern defense with a multi-product portfolio that gives the ultimate advantage—domain dominance. The company's products are powered by Coherent Distributed Networks (CDN™), empowering warfighters, commercial air operators, and border protection teams to act faster, adapt rapidly, and stay ahead of evolving threats.

CHAOS Industries was founded in 2022 and has raised a total of $1 billion in funding from leading investors, including 8VC, Accel, and Valor Equity Partners. The company is headquartered in Los Angeles, with offices in Washington, D.C., San Francisco, San Diego, and London.

Role Overview: We are seeking an experienced Principal Systems Engineer who will have a technical ownership of an autonomous Massed Modular Aircraft development program, holding end-to-end responsibility across the full program lifecycle — from concept definition and requirements development through design, integration, verification/validation, qualification, production transition, and in-service/sustainment support. This role requires deep command of Model-Based Systems Engineering (MBSE) practices using SysML, and the ability to establish and lead a model-centric development environment across a modular, multi-variant aircraft architecture. The ideal candidate combines strong systems engineering fundamentals with hands-on MBSE tooling experience and the leadership presence to drive technical decisions across a large, cross-functional engineering organization.

Responsibilities:

• Serve as the senior technical authority for systems engineering across all phases of the program: concept development, requirements definition, preliminary and critical design, integration and test, qualification, production transition, and in-service/sustainment support.
• Own the system architecture and requirements baseline for a modular aircraft platform, ensuring configurability and commonality across variants/mission modules while maintaining system-level integrity.
• Drive technical decision-making at major program reviews (SRR, SFR, PDR, CDR, TRR, qualification reviews) and own associated review packages and exit criteria.
• Partner with the Chief Engineer and Program Manager to balance technical, cost, and schedule trades across the lifecycle.
• Establish, govern, and continuously mature the program's MBSE environment using SysML, ensuring the system model serves as the authoritative source of truth for requirements, architecture, interfaces, and behavior.
• Define and enforce modeling standards, viewpoints, and model governance practices across a multi-disciplinary engineering team.
• Lead requirements decomposition and allocation from system-level down to subsystem and component levels within the model environment, maintaining full bidirectional traceability.
• Drive integration of the SysML model with digital engineering tools across the toolchain (e.g., requirements management, simulation, verification tracking, configuration management) to support a true digital thread/digital twin environment
• Define and maintain the modular system architecture, including interface control documents (ICDs) governing structural, electrical, data, and software interfaces between core airframe and mission/payload modules.
• Lead trade studies evaluating commonality vs. mission-specific optimization across module variants.
• Define the system-level verification and validation (V&V) strategy, ensuring full traceability from requirements through test/analysis/demonstration/inspection methods to verification closure.
• Lead integration of model-based verification artifacts (e.g., simulation-based verification, model execution/analysis) alongside traditional test-based verification.
• Support qualification planning and execution, ensuring the system design and supporting model artifacts meet contractual and regulatory certification/qualification requirements
• Partner closely with Configuration Management, Data Management, Program Scheduling, and Contracts functions to ensure systems engineering artifacts align with program baselines and contractual deliverables.
• Represent systems engineering in customer technical interchange meetings, program reviews, and audits.
• Support proposal efforts with systems engineering approach development, technical staffing plans, and MBSE implementation roadmaps for new business pursuits.

Minimum Requirements:

• Bachelor's degree in Systems Engineering, Aerospace Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, or related discipline; advanced degree preferred.
• 15+ years of systems engineering experience within the aerospace/defense industry, including demonstrated ownership of a program across multiple lifecycle phases.
• Strong hands-on experience with MBSE practices and SysML modeling (e.g., using tools such as Cameo Systems Modeler/MagicDraw, Rhapsody, or equivalent).
• Demonstrated experience defining and governing system architectures for complex, multi-variant, or modular platforms.
• Strong understanding of systems engineering principles, including requirements management, architecture development, and verification/validation planning.
• Experience leading technical reviews (SRR, PDR, CDR, TRR) and interfacing directly with government or commercial customers.
• Experience with model-based verification and simulation-driven V&V approaches.

Preferred Requirements:

• Direct experience with modular aircraft, unmanned aircraft systems (UAS), or multi-mission/multi-variant platform architectures.
• Experience establishing an MBSE environment and digital thread/digital twin capability on a new program from the ground up.
• Ability to obtain/maintain Secret/Top Secret/SCI clearance

Why CHAOS?

• Health Benefits: Medical, dental, and vision benefits 100% paid for by the company
• Additional benefits: 401k (+ 50% company match up to 6% of pay), FSA, HSA, life insurance, and more
• Our Perks: Free daily lunch while you're working onsite, fully-stocked kitchen, unlimited PTO, casual dress code
• Compensation Components: Competitive base salaries, generous pre-IPO stock option grants, relocation assistance, and (coming soon!) annual bonuses
• Team Growth: 500+ employees and counting across 5 global offices

Salary Range: $198,000 - $320,000

The stated compensation range reflects only the targeted base compensation range and excludes additional earnings such as bonus, equity, and benefits. If your compensation requirements fall outside of the range, we still encourage you to apply. The salary range for this role is an estimate based on a range of compensation factors, inclusive of base salary only. Actual salary offer may vary based on (but not limited to) work experience, education and/or training, critical skills, and/or business considerations.