Sr. Mission Processing Project Leader

The Aerospace Corporation is the trusted partner to the nation’s space programs, solving the hardest problems and providing unmatched technical expertise. As the operator of a federally funded research and development center (FFRDC), we are broadly engaged across all aspects of space— delivering innovative solutions that span satellite, launch, ground, and cyber systems for defense, civil and commercial customers. When you join our team, you’ll be part of a special collection of problem solvers, thought leaders, and innovators. Join us and take your place in space.

The National Systems Group serves as the technical advisor to the Intelligence Community and its mission partners involved in the collection and distribution of national and tactical intelligence, including electronics programs, advanced technologies, ground and communications, imagery programs, and systems engineering and launch.

We are seeking a Mission Processing Senior Project Leader (Senior Project Leader - Signal & Image Process Engineering) to be part of the National Reconnaissance Office’s SIGINT Ground Systems Program Office (SGSPO) within the Ground Enterprise Directorate (GED).  This customer is responsible for the development and delivery of a SIGINT baseline ground portfolio and guiding the evolution of those systems to a fully integrated and resilient enterprise.  In this position, you will be guiding the development of the US Government’s next-generation SIGINT Ground Mission Processing systems architecture.  You will lead an Aerospace team to assess current and potential future SIGINT ground architectures and facilitate the evolution of SIGINT ground capabilities to meet the needs of the evolving mission enterprise.  These efforts will include migration of the evolving systems and transitioning mission processing to cloud-based solutions.

This is a full-time position based at Westfields in Chantilly, Virginia, which requires 100% onsite work.

What You’ll Be Doing

• Integrating and representing Aerospace contributions to US Government leadership to build acquisition strategies that realize best-value solutions from industry
• Coordinating across ground and mission enterprise segments to ensure user needs are understood and satisfied for multi-phase acquisition efforts
• Building and leading Aerospace subject matter expert teams to mature signal processing technologies, integrate evolving systems and sensors, and deliver resilient and responsive algorithms
• Proactively identifying new technologies, such as AI/ML and automation, for development and integration to enhance existing processing and exploitation capabilities
• Budgeting and prioritizing Aerospace activities to maximize impact aligned with strategic customer efforts

What You Need to be Successful

Minimum Requirements for the Senior Project Leader - Signal & Image Process Engineering:

• Bachelor's or advanced degree in computer science, engineering, mathematics, physical sciences or a related technical field
• 10 or more years of ground or space systems acquisition engineering experience
• Experience building and leading high-performing teams of engineering professionals
• Experience in one or more of the following domains: mission processing systems for space systems, constellation tasking and optimization, geospatial intelligence (GEOINT), signals intelligence (SIGINT), US Government acquisitions and/or systems engineering, or agile software development
• Willing to travel domestically approx. 30 % to support customer activities and foster collaboration. 
• This position requires a current and active TS/SBI/SCI security clearance and polygraph, which is issued by the U.S. government. U.S. citizenship is required to obtain a security clearance.

How You Can Stand Out

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

• Advanced degree in signal processing, computer science/engineering, systems engineering, electrical engineering, or a related engineering or scientific field
• Excellent interpersonal and communication skills
• Expertise in RF remote sensing or SIGINT mission processing architectures including on-orbit processing
• Experience in requirements development and analysis, advanced systems architecture, and new signal processing technologies
• Certification in Kubernetes administration or application development, OpenJS/Node.js services development, Cloud Native or Cloud Foundry development
• Experience in agile software development at scale, agile IV&V testing for federal contracts, commercial cloud environments, and DevOps pipeline implementation with frequent operational deployments
• Experience with Enterprise