Department Chief Engineer – NORAD/NORTHCOM, SOUTHCOM, and STRATCOM

Roles And Responsibilities

• Advance MITRE’s Strategy, Vision, and Mission: Translate MITRE’s strategy, vision, and mission into technical direction, execution priorities, and measurable outcomes that deliver mission impact.
• Drive Strategic Outcomes: Partner with organizational and sponsor leadership to shape, refine, and execute sponsor, corporate, and functional strategies, ensuring technical efforts align with enterprise and mission priorities.
• Define and Oversee the Right Work: Lead the development, prioritization, and oversight of the technical work program, ensuring work is mission-driven, technically sound, innovative, and aligned with sponsor needs and MITRE objectives.
• Develop and Empower Our People: Build technical talent by identifying mentoring, coaching, and developing staff; foster an inclusive, high-performing environment that enables growth, collaboration, and technical excellence.
• Build Trusted Strategic Relationships: Establish and sustain strong relationships with sponsors, partners, and key stakeholders; serve as a trusted technical advisor on major initiatives, policy matters, complex challenges, and strategic priorities.
• Uphold the MITRE Brand: Ensure the highest standards of technical quality, integrity, innovation, and impact across products, programs, and deliverables, consistent with MITRE’s reputation and values.
• Steward Resources Responsibly: Partner with leadership to manage resources effectively, including people, funding, and organizational capacity, to maximize mission value, operational efficiency, and long-term sustainability.

Technical Quality Performance Objectives

• Lead and mature the Department’s Technical Quality Program by establishing, implementing, and continuously improving technical quality standards, review processes, and expectations across mission functions, technical disciplines, and work programs.
• Drive a culture of technical excellence through rigorous reviews, mentoring, and continuous improvement and bring technical talent to be part of and review products.
• Partner with business and people leadership to build organizational technical strength by assessing and influencing workforce planning, hiring, staff development, and training priorities needed to sustain critical capabilities and advance technical excellence.
• Ensure technical rigor, consistency, and quality across execution by providing oversight of project activities, technical products, and mission outcomes, and by addressing quality risks early and effectively.
• Serve as the senior technical authority for the organization by setting expectations for engineering excellence, guiding resolution of complex technical issues, and ensuring alignment between technical work, sponsor needs, and MITRE standards.
• Improve technical quality and organizational effectiveness over time by using reviews, lessons learned, feedback, and performance indicators to identify gaps, strengthen practices, and increase mission impact.

Technical Impact

• Ensure integrated portfolios and centers are aligned and driving coherent technical advancement across the mission space.
• Partner with Project Leaders to ensure projects address the right problems, are appropriately scoped during inception, and produce meaningful technical and operational impact.
• Ensure Mission Value Chains (MVCs) and Division and Center level captures of N558 work contain the appropriate technical substance and effectively support project execution, product delivery, and sponsor outcomes.
• Drive innovation and technical change across the NORAD/NORTHCOM, SOUTHCOM, and STRATCOM work programs.
• Represent MITRE’s capabilities, technical achievements, and strategic direction to senior sponsors and stakeholders to maximize mission impact and influence future opportunities.

Strategy Development

• Develop and implement strategies to enhance a technical field and its application within MITRE, including research efforts, internal and external initiatives, and strategic partnerships.
• Develop and implement strategies to advance a technical specialty and its utilization within MITRE, including the authority to initiate technical reviews of projects within the appropriate organizational scope.
• Mentor, train, and develop staff across multiple locations, including Colorado Springs, Omaha, and Miami.
• Contribute to staff development, talent assessment, workforce planning, hiring, mentoring, and training initiatives, including support for senior staff across Centers.
• Identify and promote training and educational opportunities for N558 staff and other members of the work program.
• Support the Department Manager (DM) and Division Chief Engineer in developing and executing strategies to increase N558 staff awareness of and participation in MITRE’s Internal Research and Development (IRAD) Program, with an emphasis on hands-on experimentation, prototyping, and transitioning successful IRAD efforts into the NORAD/NORTHCOM, SOUTHCOM, and STRATCOM work programs.

Partnerships and Initiatives

• Lead regional and cross-division technical initiatives of significant complexity, including the development of execution strategies and technical approaches.
• Lead cross-program and project-level technical initiatives to advance mission outcomes and organizational objectives.
• Maintain and strengthen partnerships with MITRE Labs to enhance staffing, capability development, and alignment with technical strategies, while introducing innovative solutions into the work program.
• Ensure MITRE Labs subject matter experts are effectively leveraged across the Department’s work program and technical quality initiatives.
• Collaborate with MITRE Labs and external partners to design and execute experiments, pilot efforts, and field evaluations that inform sponsor decisions, mature prototypes, and demonstrate mission utility in operationally relevant environments.

Leadership Expectations

• Build and sustain trusted relationships with senior DoW and international military leaders, engineers, other FFRDCs and UARCs, commercial executives, and managers to advance sponsor priorities and mission outcomes.
• Partner across MITRE to bring relevant capabilities, prior work, and technical expertise to sponsors, strengthening sponsor impact and enterprise value.
• Enable effective senior-level engagement by shaping strategic interactions and positioning MITRE leadership to deepen sponsor relationships and influence key decisions.
• Serve as a proactive team member and trusted leader, partnering closely with senior military leaders and action officers to identify operational and engineering challenges, develop potential solutions, and clearly communicate project goals, impacts, and outcomes.
• Foster a collaborative team environment by encouraging open communication, recognizing and leveraging individual strengths, and promoting a culture of trust, respect, and mutual support.