Avionics Electrical Mission Assurance Engineer at The Aerospace Corporation

The Western Range Directorate (WRD) provides critical mission assurance services and support to a broad range of customers that operate at Vandenberg Space Force Base (VSFB) to include the Air Force, Space Force, NRO, MDA, AFGSC and others by providing critical engineering assessments and guidance for their missions. WRD Missile Engineering and Operations (ME&O) provides technical assessments of strategic defense missiles and their payloads. You will join a collaborative team in a fast-paced environment to provide engineering expertise for strategic defense missile systems while working with government customers, contractors, and others.

We are looking for a Project Engineer to support Missile Engineering and Operations. In this position, the Project Engineer will serve as a program office system engineering integrator of technical specialists for Mission Assurance, perform specialized system engineering to the Missile Defense Agency (MDA) which is principally located in Huntsville, AL with an operating location at Vandenberg SFB. Specific assignments include Aegis Standard Missile, Next Generation Interceptor (NGI) and Targets & Countermeasures pedigree assessments. The position requires leadership skills and technical knowledge in interceptor and target elements, missile/payload integration, launch base processing and testing support at VSFB and other operational sites. This position is located at Vandenberg SFB, CA.

Work Model:  This position has a hybrid work arrangement at VSFB, telecommuting one day per week is possible, depending on customer needs and schedules.

What You’ll Be Doing

• Collaborate with the Missile Defense Agency and internal Aerospace customers to implement the MDA mission assurance assessments and other tasks associated with flight tests in various regions
• You will build effective working relationships with a government team and contractor counterparts supporting the MDA customer out of Huntsville, AL
• Lead local and matrixed staff in the mission assurance verification of MDA target and interceptor vehicles
• Support and provide electrical, avionics systems engineering expertise at MDA reviews and technical interchange meetings at Huntsville, AL and subcontractor’s facilities
• Witness, analyze, and assess flight hardware qualification, acceptance and launch operational test data results
• Contribute to written reports and prepare presentation materials in support of launch campaign readiness reviews
• Report organization’s activities, progress, and achievements through written and oral reports to management, subordinates, and customers
• Perform data handling and management for technical reviews of flight and ground hardware systems.

This position is available as a Level 2 Project Engineer or a Level 3 Senior Project Engineer.

What You Need to be Successful

Minimum Requirements:

• Bachelor’s degree in Electrical, Computer Engineering or equivalent STEM field
• Eight or more years of relevant, applicable experience
• Broad understanding and demonstrated experience across a range of disciplines for missile systems engineering, design, integration, test, and risk assessment/mitigation.
• Proven team leadership, customer responsiveness, creativity in problem solving and addressing teaming/interpersonal challenges, ability to rapidly grasp new concepts, and excellent written/verbal communication skills.
• Experience working in a collaborative environment with internal and external organizations
• Effective systems engineering and analysis skills to identify problems, develop solutions, assess risk, composing technical reports, present analyses, and work with autonomy.
• Willing to travel domestically approximately 10 – 25%
• Ability to identify and discern hazardous/emergency conditions in the workplace
• Ability to don emergency life-saving equipment and exiting safely from a hazardous and/or elevated work environment at the launch site or similar work areas
• Ability to acquire and maintain a security clearance, which is issued by the US government (U.S citizenship is required to obtain a security clearance)
• Support off-shift work requirements and occasional domestic travel, as needed

In addition to the above, the Senior Project Engineer must have the following:

• Twelve or more years of relevant, applicable experience
• Broad and deep experience in strategic missile and/or space launch processing or closely related field
• Extensive experience working in a collaborative environment with internal and external organizations
• Experience leading multi-disciplinary technical teams
• Support off-shift work requirements and occasional domestic travel, as needed

How You Can Stand Out

It would be impressive if you have one or more of these:

• An advanced degree in Electrical, Aerospace, Systems, Computer Engineering or equivalent STEM field
• Track record in development, testing, and/or failure investigation of missiles, launch vehicles, payloads, associated ground support equipment and related facility systems for DoD missions
• Experience with the Missile Defense Agency (MDA), Space Force Space Systems Command (SSC) and Air Force Global Strike Command (AFGSC)
• Design, build, and test of missile weapon systems, launch vehicles and payloads.
• Mechanical/electrical equipment development, design, integration, test verification including Parts, Materials & Processes
• Expertise with tailoring and compliance with environmental test SMC-S-16, RCC-319 and related specifications/standards as well as AS9100 and ISO9001 certification
• Experience with avionics/electrical/guidance and navigation equipment development, design, integration, and test verification
• Ability to compose high quality technical recommendations, reports, and briefing material and to effectively present them to senior corporate and customer leaders
• Experience working with government customers and with FFRDC, SETA and launch contractor organizations