Space Protection Mission Engineer

Job ID 2614266

Location Chantilly, VA, US

Date Posted 2026-07-06

Category Engineering and Sciences

Subcategory Systems Engineer

Schedule Full-Time

Shift Day Job

Travel Yes - 10% of the time

Minimum Clearance Required TS.SCI_wPoly

Clearance Level Must Be Able to Obtain None

Potential for Remote Work ORA_ON_SITE

Description SAIC is seeking a Space Protection Mission Engineer to join the Air Force, Space and Intelligence Business Group providing systems engineering and technical advisory services to a rapidly expanding Government Intelligence Community (IC) customer. The customer is developing the next generation of space and ground systems, architectures, and hardware and software solutions.

The Space Protection Mission Engineer will serve as the subject matter expert (SME) and System Program Office (SPO) representative coordinating with the development contractor and stakeholders (including end user operators) for deployment of new protection capabilities into space operations. The Space Protection Mission Engineer collaborates within a team of mission-related SMEs to coordinate system development, requirements verification testing (and sell-off), identification of discrepancies, and mission validation testing.

The Space Protection Mission Engineer responsibilities may include, but are not limited to

• Coordinate with external SPOs to develop a common space protection concept of operations that identifies capability requirements and required interfaces to enable satisfaction of their unique protection needs, while simultaneously liaising, as required, to build relationships and manage expectations.
• Advocate for enterprise capability needs at developer working groups, SPO’s internal decision forums, and other technical meetings to facilitate achieving capability delivery commitments.
• Shape strategy recommendations to include engineering and acquisition trades that meet enterprise’s demand for space protection capabilities within the program’s development priorities and budget profile.
• Serves as a SPO technical expert providing oversight for software development, implementation, and deployment of ground processing system capabilities that are integrated with the NRO space enterprise.
• Collaborate with other SMEs to develop technical plans and documentation, advise the customer on technical progress of the acquisition, and support the integration of ground processing systems with space systems.
• Produce technical materials depicting SPO’s development progress in support of stakeholder equities in preparation for stakeholder’s NRO oversight and/or other readiness events, as required.
• Support the Contracting Officer Technical Representative(s) and developers to refine requirements, designs, and testing capabilities to meet user needs.

Qualifications Required

• Bachelor’s and 9 or more years of experience; master’s and 7 or more years of experience; PhD and 4 or more years of experience.
• Active Top Secret/SCI clearance with Poly.
• Experience in Government System Engineering disciplines, including requirements development and management, readiness, and testing.
• Experience developing, testing, or fielding space and/or ground software systems.
• Familiarity with Space Domain Awareness (SDA) systems, activities, or operations.

Desired

• Experience in SDA and Indication and Warning (I&W) mission areas.
• Experience supporting NRO SIGINT/GEOINT SPOs and/or familiarity with SIGINT/GEOINT operations.
• Familiarity with NRO’s System’s Engineering Directorate (SED) and its Requirements Development/Management, RFC, and Lifecycle Readiness processes.
• Familiarity with Agile development methodologies including participation in scrums, development of solution epics/features, and continuous integration/continuous deployment.
• Familiarity with Confluence and JIRA.

Target salary range $160,001 - $200,000. The estimate displayed represents the typical salary range for this position based on experience and other factors.