Senior Systems Engineer

About the role

What Impact You'll Have

We are seeking an accomplished Senior Systems Engineer to serve as a principal technical anchor across a large-scale, multi-team engineering initiative supporting mission-critical satellite ground systems. In this lead-by-example role, you will bridge the gap between high-level mission operations, external segment stakeholders, and distributed software development pods.

Operating embedded within an agile development framework, you will provide deep domain expertise to steer ground segment architecture, author authoritative digital engineering artifacts, resolve cross-system interface complexities, and drive full-lifecycle verification and operational sell-off.

What You'll be Owning

- Lead the translation of complex customer mission needs, operational concepts (CONOPS), and multi-segment interfaces into robust digital engineering artifacts—including baseline ICDs, end-to-end operational sequence diagrams, data schemas, and verifiable requirements.

- Architect, govern, and maintain the ground segment's behavioral and structural SysML models. Ensure model consistency, maintain tight bidirectional traceability to software user stories, and enforce MBSE modeling standards across the engineering teams.

- Embed with agile scrum teams to decompose epic-level capabilities into precise technical acceptance criteria and software backlogs, ensuring software builds reliably conform to mission objectives and interface constraints.

- Drive the definition and technical governance of ground-to-space and ground-to-ground messaging schemas and protocols (REST, HTTP, Protobuf/JSON, pub/sub), ensuring low-latency data transport and clean subsystem separation.

- Architect comprehensive verification and validation strategies. Review automated test plans, establish verification matrices, troubleshoot high-tier integration anomalies, and spearhead formal requirements sell-off with customer representatives.

- Lead technical exchange meetings (TEMs), interface control working groups (ICWGs), and engineering review boards (ERBs). Represent the engineering program during formal milestone reviews and executive customer demonstrations.

What You Must Have

- Active or current Top-Secret clearance with SCI access and polygraph (TS/SCI with poly).

- Bachelor’s degree in a STEM field (Systems Engineering, Aerospace Engineering, Computer Science, or related discipline) with 15+ years of relevant engineering experience (or Master’s degree with 13+ years).

- Extensive, proven track record delivering space-ground architectures, Command and Control (C2), and mission management solutions through all lifecycle phases from concept to operational handover.

- Expert-level proficiency building and managing complex behavioral and structural models using MBSE tools

- Deep experience establishing interface protocols and data contracts for modern, distributed software architectures (RESTful APIs, event streaming, message brokers, microservice data models).