Principal Systems Engineer

Key Responsibilities

• Lead systems engineering activities across the full lifecycle, including requirements definition, architecture, integration, verification, and validation
• Own and govern system and capability-level requirements, ensuring traceability to mission needs and program objectives as well as verification planning within an Agile delivery framework
• Partner with system and solution architects on architecture runway, trade studies, and technical decision-making
• Identify, assess, and manage cross-team technical risks, dependencies, and constraints
• Provide technical oversight during integration, test, and operational readiness activities
• Ensure systems engineering best practices are applied consistently across teams

Product Ownership & Strategy

• Serve as Product Owner (or Lead PO) for major system components or value streams
• Own and prioritize capability- and feature-level backlogs, balancing mission value, technical risk, and delivery capacity
• Translate complex system requirements into clear, actionable epics, features, and user stories with well-defined acceptance criteria
• Participate actively in Agile ceremonies, including sprint planning, backlog refinement, reviews, and retrospectives, ensuring engineering intent and mission value are clearly represented
• Utilize AI-assisted tools and large language model (LLM) platforms to augment requirements analysis, backlog refinement, design exploration, and documentation, while ensuring human oversight and validation
• Create and maintain systems engineering artifacts, including requirements documentation, interface control documents (ICDs), architecture views, and verification matrices
• Influence product roadmap decisions and sequencing based on technical and delivery insights

Agile & Team Leadership

• Provide technical leadership and mentorship to team members on systems thinking, requirements quality, and Agile best practices
• Promote Agile and SAFe best practices across teams and value streams
• Support dependency management and alignment across Agile teams and release trains

Core Technical Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in Systems Engineering, Computer Science, Engineering, or a related technical field (or equivalent experience)
• 12+ years of related experience or 10+ years of experience with a Master's degree
• Strong experience working in Agile environments (SAFe)
• Proven ability to translate mission or business objectives into prioritized technical and product backlogs
• Experience collaborating with architects, engineering leads, and program leadership
• Proficiency with Agile and requirements management tools (e.g., Jira, Confluence, Cameo, Jama, or similar)
• Ability to obtain and maintain a Public Trust US citizenship