Principal Acquisition Advisor (Intelligence Center)

Roles & Responsibilities

The Geospatial Intelligence Department (N971) is seeking an Acquisition expert to support NGA’s Acquisition Environment, specifically aligned to its Component Acquisition Executive (CAE).

Responsibilities include:

• Lead transformation in how defense acquisition processes operate within existing statutory and regulatory frameworks.
• Contribute acquisition process expertise that complements technical modernization leaders; streamline governance, reduce friction across requirements, engineering, acquisition, and budgeting processes, and enable adoption of modern acquisition approaches to facilitate continuous capability delivery.
• Shape and scale acquisition execution models across sponsor portfolios to better enable incremental capability delivery and continuous value realization.
• Advance acquisition approaches that improve software acquisition execution and enable interoperable, mission-ready capabilities across the Department of War.
• Influence governance structures, decision forums, and oversight approaches to align acquisition control mechanisms with modern engineering and delivery practices.
• Design practical execution architectures that integrate requirements, funding, contracting, engineering, test, and sustainment into synchronized delivery systems.
• Partner with engineering leaders to ensure acquisition strategies reinforce — rather than constrain — DevSecOps, iterative development, and platform-based approaches.
• Reframe performance management from milestone completion toward measurable delivery outcomes.
• Identify systemic barriers within acquisition structures (organizational, financial, cultural, or procedural) and implement pragmatic transformation strategies that improve portfolio throughput.
• Guide sponsors in structuring acquisition pathways — including Software Pathway, hybrid models, and alternative contracting mechanisms — to accelerate transition from prototype to continuous capability delivery.
• Advise senior leaders on portfolio-level prioritization, sequencing, and risk trade-offs to improve capability delivery performance.
• Contribute to development of repeatable frameworks, playbooks, and reference models that can be applied across multiple sponsors to institutionalize modernization gains.
• Serve as a trusted advisor to program teams and senior leaders.
• Proactively help sponsors identify and shape modernization opportunities.
• Build and sustain trusted relationships across sponsors, FFRDC partners, industry, and academic stakeholders to support integrated modernization efforts.
• Participate as an active member of multidisciplinary teams integrating acquisition, engineering, and delivery expertise to improve capability outcomes.

Basic Qualifications

• Typically requires a minimum of 10 years of related experience with a Bachelor’s degree; or 8 years and a Master’s degree; or a PhD with 5 years’ experience; or equivalent combination of related education and work experience.
• Typically requires a minimum of 8 years of related experience with a Bachelor’s degree; or 6 years and a Master’s degree; or 3 years and a PhD; or equivalent combination of related education and work experience.
• Demonstrated experience navigating or improving DoW acquisition processes in programs, portfolios, or enterprise settings.
• Practical knowledge of acquisition mechanisms such as OTAs, FAR-based strategies, and innovation pathways to enable adaptive delivery approaches.
• Experience implementing modern acquisition approaches in traditional acquisition or AAF environments.
• Demonstrated ability to lead cross-functional working groups and drive change across organizational boundaries with measurable improvement.
• Experience supporting or implementing governance improvements.
• Strong analytical, facilitation, and stakeholder engagement skills.
• Strong critical thinking, problem-solving, and communication skills.
• Able to operate in dynamic sponsor environments with evolving objectives.
• Active TS/SCI with polygraph.
• U.S. Citizenship required.

Preferred Qualifications

• Executive leadership, with demonstrated experience serving as a trusted sponsor resource or advisor within the IC/DoW, with demonstrated experience leading extensive, complex engagements delivering successful projects, with the ability to span from strategic to tactical during daily engagements with the sponsor.
• Understanding of the IC and DoW Acquisition Environments, policy, and practices to include recent DoW Acquisition Transformation elements.
• Demonstrated experience as a federal government resource professional (e.g., Planning, Programming, Budgeting, and Execution (PPBE) process and structure).
• Change and organizational management experience related to transitioning an agency/business through extensive organizational, acquisition, and financial management changes.
• Personnel Management and Leadership.
• Extensive experience with acquisition governance and/or PEO operating experience (or senior PM level experience).
• Experience with Adaptive Acquisition Framework and Acquisition Pathways, acquisition policy, and processes.
• Experience with designing and preparing executive level products and written deliverables (i.e., policy references, memo’s, executive correspondence, etc.).

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