Title:  Senior Scientist, Systems Engineer

Job Title: Senior Scientist, Systems Engineer

Job Code: 28926

Job Location: Herndon, VA

Job Schedule: 9/80 (Every other Friday off!)
Relocation: Relocation assistance is available to qualified applicants

Job Description:  

The Advanced Concept Engineer (ACE) provides strategic technical leadership to draw on L3Harris' technical competencies to meet the business needs of L3Harris and its customers. The ACE is the technical interface between L3Harris and our customers’ engineering staff, supporting the Business Development staff in the creation of new business opportunities. The successful ACE will engage with customer, engineering, operations, and management personnel to define and document the customer’s CONOPS and requirements, perform trade studies, engage L3Harris Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) to architect an affordable solution carrying acceptable risk, and lead resulting proposal efforts. The ACE considers all of the needs, resources, and constraints, including the customer mission, budget limitations, technical preferences, physics boundaries, and the political climate, in a manner that creates trust in the ACE as well as L3Harris. During program execution, the ACE is the technical advocate and voice of the customer during program reviews.  This role requires experience in systems engineering, system architecture development, competitive assessment, project engineering management and development program execution. 
  
The Advanced Concept Engineer should be a subject matter expert in multiple technical domains with an entrepreneurial background.  This individual will work closely with business development and senior management to respond to customer needs with technical presentations, white papers and proposals; requests for proposals, information and broad agency announcements; and provide market and subject matter expert guidance to business strategy and existing development efforts.  Demonstrated communication and interpersonal skills, coupled with the ability to work cross-functionally between a large engineering enterprise and external partners is required.

Essential Functions: 

• Interpretation of customers’ mission needs with a focus on identifying mission gaps and addressable market
• Advocates customer critical needs to internal stakeholders
• Builds business cases and manages discretionary resources  
• Roadmaps organic technology, discretionary funding, external partner capabilities, and customer funded studies to build new business opportunities
• Performs technical and management competitive assessments to clearly communicate why and how the new business opportunities provide value to L3Harris and the customer
• Evaluates customer and operational needs to help define and coordinate high level system performance, physical, functional, and program interface requirements
• Synthesis and life cycle ownership of mission architecture
• Generation of the initial Concept of Operations (CONOPS) or Operational Descriptions Document (ODD)  
• Generation of initial system architecture views; decomposing opportunity to addressable configuration items in a compressive value chain framework
• Leads the development of appropriate solutions to customer needs  
• Demonstrates broad and deep technical knowledge; accesses Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) as needed  
• Determines whether requirements can be met with existing capabilities/designs or if new design requirements must be developed
• Leads and coordinates various analyses to optimize total system of systems and/or system architecture  
• Assess and provide direction for make/buy decisions and selection of strategic suppliers
• Establishes the technology integration or migration strategies
• Leads and perform trade studies required to make both tactical and strategic technical decisions for pursuit
• Provides technical coordination between customer, industry, and internal engineering groups to articulate technical issues
• Prepares and presents technical information that addresses specific subjects of interest
• Analyzes and develops recommendations to resolve contractual technical issues
• Maintains a macro view of L3Harris' existing and emerging technologies  
• Leads and coordinates pursuit activities such as technical baseline reviews, request for input (RFI) responses, request for proposal (RFP) responses, and white papers. 
  
  

Qualifications: 

• Bachelor’s Degree with a minimum of 15 years of prior related experience. Graduate Degree with a minimum of 13 years of prior related experience. In lieu of a degree, minimum of 19 years of prior related experience.
• 15 years' experience in RF Engineering including ideation, analysis of alternatives, and link budgets
• 15 years' experience in Satellite SME with expertise in multi-orbit communications over a wide range of frequencies (5G/LTE, L, S, Ka and Ku bands) and the ability to develop and implement SDR solutions for satellite communications.
• 10 years' experience in offensive and defensive Cyber mission experience with the ability to identify core mission gaps and influence customer solution space
• 10 years of proven technical business development skills winning DoD/Government programs or CRAD
• Active Top Secret Security Clearance. 
  
  

Preferred Additional Skills:

• Experience with IP networking, routing, and switching
• Knowledge of cloud-based infrastructure and services, including storage, computing, and networking
• Experience with securing communication links and data
• Experience with AI tools and frameworks for developing intelligent systems and automating processes
• Understanding of regulatory requirements for satellite communications with experience in obtaining necessary licenses and ensuring compliance
• Demonstrated entrepreneurial success
• Demonstrated quick reaction technical team leadership experience
• Experience analyzing, developing, and integrating electronic systems in areas such as remote sensing, aerospace payloads, mission computing, communications, networking, robotics, and cyber / electronic warfare
• Experience working with and for Department of Defense (DoD), Intelligence Community (IC) — both domestic and international
• In-depth knowledge of semiconductor R&D and supply chain
• Extensive knowledge of integrated photonics, MEMS, RF systems, and quantum sensors
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills
• Excels in communication, adeptly translating complex technical concepts for diverse audiences, including non-technical stakeholders and cross-functional teams
• Experience with functional and physical architecture development
• Experience collaborating in a team environment
• Ability to work autonomously and with others to resolve technical issues