Senior Systems Engineer (SME) - Systems Planning and Analysis, Inc.

Systems Planning and Analysis, Inc. (SPA) delivers high-impact, technical solutions to complex national security issues. With over 50 years of business expertise and consistent growth, we are known for continuous innovation for our government customers, in both the US and abroad. Our exceptionally talented team is highly collaborative in spirit and practice, producing Results that Matter. Come work with the best! We offer opportunity, unique challenges, and clear-sighted commitment to the mission. SPA: Objective. Responsive. Trusted. 

The Space and Intelligence Division provides engineering services and analytic support to the Air Force, Space Force, Combatant Commands, the Intelligence Community, and NASA. Our work includes systems engineering and integration, test planning and execution, cost estimating and analysis, developing approaches and concepts to meet emerging, high priority National Defense needs, and assessing and developing cutting-edge technologies and capabilities to meet those needs.

PRKK a wholly owned subsidiary of SPA, helps to ensure unity-of-effort in space, cyber, and special operations support to theater warfighters, US government and civil agencies, and commercial and foreign partners. SPA/PRKK has an immediate need for a highly qualified Senior Systems Engineer (SME)

Employ a multi-discipline approach to requirements engineering, solutions engineering, reliability, resiliency, services development, research and development (R&D), integration, test and evaluation, maintainability and analysis across controlled access program/special access program (CAP/SAP) architectures in the DoD/IC to ensure timely and accurate geospatial intelligence (GEOINT).  Candidates will be required to sign additional non-disclosure agreements (NDAs) and provide proof of no other conflicts of interest (OCI) for performance in the (classified) Program Management Office, henceforth referenced as “PMO.”

Duties include:

• Develop and maintain System Engineering Plans (SEPs) and contractors’ System Engineering Management Plans (SEMPs) for the programs.
• Develop and maintain standard acquisition documentation for PMO portfolio, including standardized requirements documentation and processes (e.g. DOORS).
• Define repeatable processes and procedures for transitioning new technologies and integrating new applications into PMO infrastructure.
• Participate in requirements development and documentation.
• Create and maintain standards and specifications for PMO programs and capabilities.
• Prepare and review request for information (RFI) responses to identify innovative and new technologies to prototype and transition into the PMO.
• Assist in the evaluation of proposed industry solutions including program reviews (SRR, PDR, CDR, etc.).
• Provide input to PMO strategic roadmaps and systems engineering products to help ensure program rigor, resolve potential gaps, drive cross-cutting integration, ensure data is protected appropriately, and ensure mission capabilities are met.
• Provide baseline requirements (request for change (RFC)) support to include the full breadth of National Geospatial Intelligence Agency (NGA) and mission partner requirements coordination meetings and initiatives to transition R&D capabilities to PMO operations.

• Master’s degree in Engineering + 18 years of experience or PhD in Engineering + 10 years of experience in related technical or scientific fields such as engineering, physics, or mathematics.
• Demonstrated experience in integrating SSA applications, including experience with compliance to Integrated Protection Strategy (IPS) controls.
• Demonstrated experience with threats including space object surveillance and identification (SOSI), radar and optical sensors, command and control (C2), battle management command, control, and communications (BMC3), orbital analysis, and deep experience with offensive/defensive space control (OSC/DSC).
• Experience dealing with data and data sources that exist at multiple classification levels and integrating that data with computational processes that will generate additional data at multiple classification levels; experience employing security controls to protect assets, mission, and data from SECRET to CAP/SAP levels.
• Demonstrated experience with space enterprise information needs (comprehensive, historical, and indexed appropriately for down-stream tools), including space object observations, historical behavior and the relevant context of that behavior.
• Experience with space environment, and space-to-ground including threats to assets; track de-confliction of SSA, and Space imaging windows with ground targets; understanding of foreign collection threat against Space, Air, Sea, and Land operations in support of some of the nation’s most sensitive operations.
• Experience with physics models to include the assessment of conservative/non-conservative forces, uncertainty/confidence estimation, space weather effects, break-up events, and conjunction analysis techniques that scale to many-on-many objects and can be dynamically tasked.
• Experience with space object measurement and identification. Objects in space can be determined and matched to a space catalog (with some degree of confidence) by combining measurements from multiple sensors; metric object identification can be augmented by temporal behavioral properties where available. The properties of unknown objects can be captured and associated with observations and tracks for subsequent refinement.
• Demonstrated experience supporting IC or DoD CAP/SAP architecture.
• Understanding of Model Based Systems Engineering, processes, tools and languages.
• Preferred clearance: Active TS/SCI with current CI polygraph at time of application
• Minimal clearance requirement: Active TS/SCI, willing to sit for CI polygraph

Desired:

• Demonstrated experience with the following standards:
  • ANSI/EIA 632: Processes for Engineering Systems
  • IEEE 1220: Standard for Application and Management of Systems Engineering
  • IEEE 24765:2017 – Systems and Software Engineering – Vocabulary
  • ISO/IEC/IEEE 12207:2017 – Systems and Software Engineering – Software Life Cycle Processes
  • ISO/IEC 15288: Systems Engineering – System Life Cycle Processes