Senior Space Systems Engineer – Acquisition & Integration

Overview

Stellar Solutions, a nationally recognized Great Place To Work®, delivers engineering solutions across commercial space and national security missions—from innovative new entrants to established government and aerospace organizations.

We bring talented, energetic, and immediately productive professionals to meet critical customer needs in systems engineering and integration, mission operations, program management, acquisition support, and strategic planning—helping our customers deliver resilient mission capability with speed, quality, and technical excellence.

Stellar Solutions is seeking a Senior Space Systems Engineer – Acquisition & Integration to support a proposed national security space program. This position provides senior systems engineering, technical advisory, and acquisition support to government program offices responsible for delivering next-generation Space-Based Sensing and Targeting (SBST) capabilities.

Role/Responsibilities/Qualifications

The successful candidate will serve as a trusted technical advisor, working alongside government leadership, systems engineers, acquisition professionals, development contractors, FFRDCs, and mission stakeholders to guide technical planning, architecture assessments, systems integration, acquisition strategy, and transition of capabilities from development into operational use. Depending on customer priorities, the role may support space, ground, mission processing, data transport, cloud/edge computing, and operational mission environments.

This is an opportunity to help shape the future of national security space. Working alongside government leaders, industry partners, and technical experts, you'll influence the engineering, acquisition, and integration decisions that bring next-generation space capabilities from concept to operational reality.

Key Responsibilities

• Provide senior systems engineering and program office advisory support for Space-Based Sensing and Targeting (SBST), Environmental Monitoring, AMTI, GMTI, mission-data transport, ground processing, and related space-based sensing capabilities.
• Advise government program offices on technical planning, acquisition strategy, systems engineering, requirements development, architecture evolution, development oversight, integration activities, test planning, and transition-to-operations efforts.
• Lead coordination across government organizations, prime contractors, FFRDCs, developers, and mission stakeholders to resolve technical issues, identify risks, and support successful program execution.
• Lead development and review of system requirements, technical specifications, architecture products, interface documentation, security constraints, risk registers, Plans of Action & Milestones (POA&Ms), and acquisition decision materials.
• Evaluate system interfaces, software and hardware changes, ground-system integration, mission-data flows, operational workflows, and technical tradeoffs while providing recommendations to government leadership.
• Assess operational suitability, mission readiness, and sustainment planning as capabilities transition from development and test into operational environments.
• Support acquisition milestones, engineering reviews, readiness assessments, technical interchange meetings, contractor technical reviews, and executive decision forums through independent technical analysis and recommendations.
• Develop executive-level technical reports, briefings, risk assessments, technical analyses, and decision-support products for senior government leadership.
• Mentor junior engineers and provide technical guidance across multidisciplinary engineering and acquisition teams.
• Collaborate across systems engineering, mission integration, acquisition support, digital engineering, mission assurance, and mission-performance organizations to support successful delivery of mission capabilities.
• Support additional systems engineering and technical advisory activities as assigned.

Required Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in Engineering, Physics, Computer Science, Mathematics, or another relevant STEM discipline.
• 12+ years of relevant experience supporting complex national security space, intelligence, or defense acquisition programs.
• Extensive experience supporting Department of Defense, United States Space Force, Intelligence Community, NRO, SSC, SDA, MDA, or equivalent government organizations.
• Demonstrated experience serving as a senior technical advisor to government program offices supporting space or national security missions.
• Experience leading systems engineering, technical integration, acquisition support, architecture assessments, or program execution activities across multiple organizations.
• Strong understanding of the systems engineering lifecycle, requirements development, architecture analysis, integration, test, transition, and sustainment.
• Demonstrated ability to independently identify technical, schedule, cost, integration, and programmatic risks while providing actionable recommendations to government leadership.
• Experience coordinating technical activities among government customers, development contractors, FFRDCs, mission partners, and engineering organizations.
• Proven ability to prepare and present executive-level technical briefings, acquisition documentation, engineering assessments, and decision-support materials.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills with the ability to communicate effectively with engineers, acquisition professionals, program managers, and senior government leaders.

Desired Qualifications

• Extensive experience supporting national security space programs.
• Experience supporting space or ground systems, mission processing, satellite communications, command-and-control, ISR/GEOINT, radar/RF sensing, cloud computing, mission-data architectures, or related mission systems.
• Experience supporting Major Defense Acquisition Programs (MDAPs) or similarly complex acquisition efforts.
• Experience supporting acquisition documentation including Statements of Work (SOWs), Performance Work Statements (PWSs), Contract Data Requirements Lists (CDRLs), Requests for Proposal (RFPs), source selections, contractor technical oversight, and milestone decision activities.
• Experience with Digital Engineering, Model-Based Systems Engineering (MBSE), or Digital Engineering strategies.
• DAWIA certification, DAU coursework, or other acquisition-related professional training.
• Experience mentoring systems engineers or leading multidisciplinary technical teams.

Clearance & Additional Requirements

• Active TS/SCI with Polygraph required.
• Ability to obtain and maintain customer site access.
• Ability to travel periodically to customer and temporary work locations as required.

Deliverable(s)

This role offers the opportunity to influence some of the nation's most complex space programs by providing independent technical insight, guiding acquisition decisions, and helping transition advanced capabilities from concept to operational mission success.