Modeling & Simulation Research Engineer

About the role

Do you love digging into how real-world systems actually behave, and distilling that into software through requirements generation, code design, and analysis? If so, we're looking for someone like you to join our Air Combat and Strike Mission Analysis team at APL. We are seeking a research-minded engineer to help us turn mission-level simulation into decisions that shape next-generation strike and air-dominance systems. You'll be joining our team of developers and analysts who work together to create a variety of solutions to multifaceted challenges.

Responsibilities

Develop software (approximately half time)

• Develop and validate C++ modeling and simulation capabilities representing multi-domain mission-system behaviors, carrying them from requirements and code design through implementation.
• Build Python and C++ tools for scenario generation, data processing, and regression of simulations.

Perform research and analysis (approximately half time)

• Conduct research and development (R&D) on real-world mission-system behaviors, grounding our models in how systems actually perform before they ever hit the simulator.
• Analyze simulation output to assess military utility, system requirements, and capability tradeoffs.
• Translate analyst needs into modeling requirements that drive our simulation work.

Qualifications

Minimum qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in physics, mathematics, software engineering, or a related field.
• Demonstrated experience building robust, maintainable software with modern C++17 or newer, including numerical methods or modeling complex phenomena.
• Proficiency in Python for analysis and automation.
• Experience designing and conducting experiments using simulation, modeling, or data-driven methods to evaluate hypotheses and inform technical decisions.
• Experience translating research concepts, algorithms, or analytical results into practical software prototypes and evaluating their performance.
• Ability to communicate clearly with developers and end-users about technical issues, tradeoffs, and new features.
• Passion for learning new concepts and growing personal skills.
• Ability to obtain the associated required Special Access Program (SAP) level access.
• Ability to obtain an Interim Secret security clearance and ultimately obtain a Top Secret level clearance. If selected, you will be subject to a government security clearance investigation and must meet requirements for access to classified information. Eligibility requires U.S. citizenship.

Preferred qualifications

• Master's or PhD in a related field.
• Experience with the Advanced Framework for Simulation, Integration and Modeling (AFSIM) and its plugins.
• Experience with communications, sensing, tracking and filtering, data fusion, or electronic warfare.
• Experience applying machine learning to physics or engineering problems.
• Experience running simulations on high-performance computing platforms.
• Familiarity with DevSecOps — GitLab, Docker, CMake, and Conan.

Benefits

• Robust education assistance program
• Unparalleled retirement contributions
• Healthy work/life balance
• Comprehensive benefits package including retirement plans, paid time off, medical, dental, vision, life insurance, short-term disability, long-term disability, flexible spending accounts, education assistance, and training and development

Pay

Minimum Rate: $100,000 Annually

Maximum Rate: $245,000 Annually