Leidos is seeking a talented Chief Engineer to join a diverse team creating unique solutions for complex problems. With offices across the United States engaging in the defense, space, cyber and commercial fields, Leidos provides responsive, cost-effective engineering, scientific and IT solutions.

The Chief Engineer owns the technical performance and is key stakeholder in cost and schedule performance for all technical content on the program. The Chief Engineer is the technical point of contact for the program to the customer, functional disciplines and leadership across the lifecycle of a program. This person is responsible for design decisions ensuring contract integrity and work quality, sets the team battle rhythm, aligns the priorities for the team and arbitrator for technical conflict. The Chief Engineer ensures technical baseline is stable, applying appropriate engineering rigor and implements appropriate change control.

As part of Leidos’ Defense Space Division, the Program Chief Engineer at Leidos will be the technical lead of either a program execution or a program capture for missions of national defense.  Leidos supports national defense missions by developing and providing cutting edge, high tech, space-based technology that enables overhead persistent optical imaging and radio frequency solutions for the nations war fighters.

Primary Responsibilities

Works closely with the Program Manager to maintain consistent design and project direction.Ensures that the engineering teams properly account for cost and schedule constraints in their design decisions (including the aggregated impact to the overall system).Serves as the program’s primary technical interface with the customer and Leidos senior leadership.Responds to requests for technical information, reviews/approves the information aggregated by the program team before that information is delivered.Models the use of sound engineering principles and provides disciplined guidance to ensure successful execution of technical plans and goals while communicating effectively on operational and design decisions, technical risk identification and mitigation, definition and achievement of requirements, and overall end-to-end system definition.Ensures that the delivered end-product(s) provide the necessary operational capability while meeting the system requirements and quality objectives.Provides oversight and mentoring to the program’s technical teams, designers, and analysts throughout the full product lifecycle.Assists with requirement analysis, mission analysis, and system design trade-offs.In collaboration with the program’s Lead System Engineer, ensures system requirements, architecture, and interfaces are properly defined, communicated, decomposed, and/or allocated to all the engineering teams and their respective subsystems.Drives the use of standard Leidos division processes (methodologies) across the program; identifies and proposes process tailoring to optimize program execution.Supports the engineering staff in the analysis, investigation, and resolution of routine, complex, and emergent engineering issues, and coordinates additional resources as required.When failures occur, actively supports identification of the root cause, resolution, and systems updates to prevent repeats (from a process perspective).Participates in all system level and customer-facing engineering technical meetings.Reviews and approves program specific system engineering trade studies.Addresses and resolves technical disputes between engineering teams.Maintains and shares lessons learned throughout program execution.

Basic Qualifications

Bachelor of Science degree in Software, Electrical, Mechanical, or Aerospace Engineering or equivalent field from an ABET accredited school is required. Master’s Preferred.Minimum of 10 years of relevant experience as Chief Engineer, or similar role, and at least 15 years of experience with engineering complex systems thru the whole product development cycle.Familiarity with lean manufacturing tools and techniques.Experience engineering complex electro-mechanical systems (optical systems is a plus).Experience building and delivering products that operate in the space environment. Demonstratable experience with process control and root cause analysis and corrective action using data driven techniques (i.e. six sigma black belt processes).  Demonstrated experience with design for manufacturability and design for test.Multi-disciplinary knowledge and experience in areas related to all engineering functions including systems, electrical, software, mechanical, manufacturing, and test engineering.Experienced at providing accurate estimates at completion (EAC) values. Familiar with modern software development techniques like Agile and SecDevOps.Proficient at Office Products, document creation, and data analysis.Excellent at communications both verbally and written.Excellent team player and able to travel at least 25% of the time.Must be able to obtain and maintain a Top-Secret Clearance (U.S. citizenship required).

Preferred Qualifications

List additional skills and experience that is “nice to have” but not required. 

Mechanical engineering development skills (viewing, commenting, design checking) using Solidworks and Windchill.Electrical engineering development (viewing, commenting, design checking) using Altium.Experienced with software development using the Green Hills IDE and RTOS (viewing, commenting, design checking, architecture definition).Experienced with firmware (FPGA) development using Vivado (viewing, commenting, design checking, architecture definition).Experienced with modern software development using git branching structures, merge requests, and continuous integration and continuous deployment with Gitlab.Experienced managing a team using the Atlassian tool chain (Confluence, JIRA).Experienced developing automated custom reports on programmatic and/or technical performance.Experience with tracking optical telescope usage and design skills.Proficient in python script development (viewing, commenting, design checking).Experience with spacecraft or payload development, launch, and/or operations.Experience with SDA, NRO, SSC/SMC/MDA or other space / missile defense agencies.Experience with Model-based systems engineering, digital engineering, and DevSecOps principles.Proficient in information technology skills in Windows and Linux (user management, scripting, command line functions, services, etc.).   Original Posting Date:2024-12-11

While subject to change based on business needs, Leidos reasonably anticipates that this job requisition will remain open for at least 3 days with an anticipated close date of no earlier than 3 days after the original posting date as listed above.

Pay Range:Pay Range $148,850.00 - $269,075.00

The Leidos pay range for this job level is a general guideline only and not a guarantee of compensation or salary. Additional factors considered in extending an offer include (but are not limited to) responsibilities of the job, education, experience, knowledge, skills, and abilities, as well as internal equity, alignment with market data, applicable bargaining agreement (if any), or other law.