Systems Engineer IV, PNT Product Lines
Company: Defense-technology company (name shared under NDA)
Location: Northern Virginia or Las Vegas, Nevada
Type: Full-time
Compensation: $130,000 to $160,000, flexible upward for the right Virginia-based candidate
Eligibility: U.S. citizenship required
Confidential Search · Defense Technology
Confidential search. The hiring company's identity is shared with candidates under NDA.
About the Client
A founder-led defense technology company building deployable position, navigation, and timing (PNT) hardware for the U.S. Army. The company is moving three product lines out of prototype and onto a production floor of its own in Las Vegas, with engineering based in Northern Virginia. This is a place where the work you own is the work that ships: a small team, real hardware, and fielding timelines that do not move.
About the Role
You establish the systems engineering baseline for four PNT product lines: a tactical radio product, a mounted radio module, a software-defined timing and telemetry module, and a navigation sensor fusion line. Everything downstream this year sits on the requirements, interfaces, and trade studies you produce, including integration engineering, production line stand-up, and test and verification.
Today these products exist as a working prototype baseline. Your job is to turn that into an engineering baseline that a production line and a Government customer can both be held to.
Responsibilities
- Requirements analysis. System-level functional, performance, interface, environmental, and supportability requirements for each product line, traceable to the customer's operational needs and to applicable military standards including MIL-STD-461 and MIL-STD-810.
- The Systems Engineering Plan. Authored and delivered as a formal PWS deliverable.
- Requirements traceability. Stand up the Requirements Traceability Verification Matrix (RTVM) for each product line, with requirements allocated to design elements and defined verification methods and acceptance criteria.
- Interface Control Documents. Lead ICD development covering physical connectors, power interfaces, data exchange protocols, RF interfaces, and integration interfaces across dismounted, vehicle-mounted, and unmanned system architectures.
- Oscillator upgrade trade study. Lead the timing module technology upgrade path from a TCXO baseline to an OCXO upgrade, covering technical rationale, holdover performance projections, component availability, and the program milestone dependencies that govern the decision.
- Thermal management analysis. Characterize modem heat generation under sustained transmit power and evaluate passive cooling design options for the timing module chassis across all three deployment configurations.
- Technical direction. Provide engineering and managerial direction on problem definition, analysis, and implementation, and perform risk assessment using modeling and simulation techniques.
Requirements
Must-Haves
- 10 to 20 years of systems engineering experience on complex hardware systems. A master's degree may be required to meet the contract labor category.
- Hands-on ownership of the full systems engineering artifact set, including requirements decomposition, ICDs, RTVM and verification matrices, and the SEP, on a program that actually shipped hardware.
- Working fluency with MIL-STD-461 and MIL-STD-810 qualification, and what those standards cost you in design.
- Embedded electronics depth across RF, power, connectors, and data interfaces. You can read a schematic and argue with a hardware engineer productively.
- Comfort operating as the single technical authority across multiple concurrent product lines, with no one above you to escalate the engineering call to.
- U.S. citizenship, and the ability to obtain and maintain a U.S. Government security clearance.
Nice-to-Haves
- PNT, GNSS, or precision timing background, including GNSS receivers, anti-jam and anti-spoof, oscillator selection and holdover analysis, or timing distribution.
- Direct experience with tactical radio or software-defined radio integration.
- Prior work on Army TENCAP, PM PNT, or comparable rapid-prototyping programs.
- Thermal analysis capability for sealed or passively cooled enclosures.
Process
- This is a confidential search. An NDA is required before the company's identity and full role details are shared. We screen for interest at a high level first, then read candidates in once an NDA is in place.
This position supports U.S. Government work subject to export control regulations. Applicants must be U.S. persons. The hiring company is an equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability, or status as a protected veteran.