Chief Integrator

We are seeking a Chief Integrator to serve as the full-effort technical integration lead for a critical Satellite Control (Telemetry, Tracking, and Command - TT&C) mission capability. This role connects operational need, acquisition strategy, technical direction, architecture, prototype maturation, integration, test, cybersecurity, transition, fielding, and sustainment into one coherent path to mission delivery.

The Chief Integrator works directly with Government executives, acquisition leaders, mission owners, and technical decision makers to frame consequential choices, identify the evidence needed for action, and drive timely resolution of cross-program issues. The role collaborates with a team of highly experienced subject-matter experts through technical direction, integration priorities, decision preparation, and issue resolution while preserving each expert's discipline authority and Government decision ownership.

This is a senior individual-contributor position with no personnel-management or supervisory responsibility. Leadership is exercised through technical credibility, customer trust, disciplined integration, clear accountability for technical actions, and influence across organizations. Success means that separate projects, technologies, stakeholders, and delivery timelines converge into an integrated capability the warfighter can employ and sustain.

Primary Responsibilities

• Own technical integration effort. Maintain the end-to-end technical view across mission outcomes, architectures, projects, interfaces, data flows, infrastructure, cybersecurity, test, logistics, training, fielding, and sustainment; ensure area-level decisions remain coherent with the total mission solution.
• Advise executive decision makers. Provide candid, evidence-based counsel to Government and company executives on technical feasibility, maturity, integration complexity, portfolio consequences, schedule realism, risk posture, and readiness for the next acquisition or transition decision.
• Drive critical decisions. Frame the decision, identify accountable owners, define the minimum evidence needed, establish decision dates and exit criteria, expose unresolved assumptions, and carry actions through closure without displacing Government authority.
• Lead the senior SME team. Set technical priorities and integration objectives for high-level specialists; organize focused working sessions and reviews; reconcile discipline-level recommendations; and synthesize expert evidence into one defensible enterprise position.
• Shape executable technical direction. Translate Government-defined problems and objectives into Technical Direction Plan content that integrates scope, assumptions, gaps, risks, resources, schedule, cost, stakeholders, architecture, test and demonstration, security, and transition.
• Converge independent programs. Build trusted relationships across program offices, operators, intelligence organizations, communications teams, acquisition professionals, developers, testers, cybersecurity teams, logisticians, suppliers, and mission partners; influence programs to accelerate, resequence, narrow, pause, or protect work so dependencies meet at the required capability window.
• Connect architecture to mission delivery. Align operational threads, system functions, hardware, software, firmware, interfaces, external systems, data, communications, sites, users, and support concepts within an integrated and evolvable technical architecture.
• Accelerate pre-prototype learning. Define focused analyses, experiments, demonstrations, test events, models, supplier evidence, and site validations that determine feasibility, reduce uncertainty, mature technical readiness, and prevent premature commitment.
• Integrate test, security, and transition early. Ensure test strategy, relevant-environment evidence, RMF and accreditation needs, operational acceptance, interface documentation, training, ownership, sustainment, and exit criteria are incorporated before design and schedule choices become difficult to change.
• Resolve enterprise-level technical risk. Lead fact-based investigation of multidomain issues, identify root causes and second-order impacts, establish corrective-action paths, and elevate disagreements or unresolved risk with clear options and consequences.
• Create executive decision products. Deliver concise technical direction plans, enterprise roadmaps, architecture views, option papers, integration assessments, risk and opportunity views, decision schedules, readiness findings, and executive briefings that lead to action.
• Maintain execution transparency. Establish an integrated view of technical commitments, milestones, dependencies, decisions, work products, risks, mitigations, and Government actions across the project portfolio; surface barriers before they affect the mission delivery window.
• Protect modularity and future options. Evaluate commercial and Government solutions, modular increments, open interfaces, data-rights objectives, supplier capacity, competitive approaches, scalability, and transition choices that improve resilience, affordability, and time-to-field.
• Support focused growth and solution shaping. Engage selectively in executive customer discovery, adjacent mission shaping, technical solution reviews, demonstrations, proposal strategy, and technical content for closely related opportunities; this role does not own sales targets, pipeline management, or capture operations.

Qualifications Required
• Bachelor's degree or equivalent in electrical engineering, aerospace engineering, software engineering, computer science, physics, mathematics, engineering management, or a closely related technical discipline, with a minimum of 12 years of relevant professional experience.
• Recognized as a top contributor within the technical community, with a well-established technical reputation and a record of influencing high-consequence mission, integration, acquisition, or fielding decisions.
• Progressive experience leading technical integration for complex defense, space, intelligence, national security, or other mission-critical systems involving multiple programs, organizations, disciplines, interfaces, and delivery timelines.
• Demonstrated success advising executive-level Government or corporate leaders by translating complex technical evidence, uncertainty, dependencies, and risk into clear options, consequences, and recommended actions.
• Experience directing the work of senior engineers, architects, operators, cybersecurity professionals, testers, logisticians, analysts, or other subject-matter experts through technical priorities and outcomes without relying on formal supervisory authority.
• Proven ability to establish an end-to-end integration approach spanning operational need, technical architecture, prototype maturation, system interfaces, test evidence, security, transition, fielding, and sustainment.
• Experience coordinating independent programs or organizations with competing priorities and influencing changes to scope, sequencing, technical approach, or schedule to achieve a shared mission delivery objective.
• Experience creating and briefing decision-quality products such as technical direction plans, architecture views, integration strategies, technical assessments, alternatives or course-of-action analyses, risk views, readiness findings, roadmaps, and executive briefings.
• Technical depth in mission architectures, operational threads, interfaces, data flows, external dependencies, interoperability, modularity, integration risk, and the relationship between technical choices and operational outcomes.
• Working knowledge of defense acquisition, rapid prototyping, test and evaluation, RMF and accreditation, transition planning, and the cost, schedule, performance, and sustainment consequences of technical decisions.
• Ability to build trusted relationships, challenge unsupported assumptions constructively, resolve technical disagreement, and communicate with authority across executive, operational, acquisition, and highly technical audiences.
• Ability to work on-site in Albuquerque, New Mexico, travel to Colorado Springs, Colorado, and support periodic travel to Government, operational, supplier, test, or mission sites as required.
• U.S. citizenship and an active DoD Top Secret/SCI security clearance required at time of hire.

Qualifications Desired
• Master's degree in electrical engineering, aerospace engineering, software engineering, computer science, systems architecture, engineering management, applied mathematics, or a related technical discipline.
• Direct experience supporting U.S. Space Force, another military space organization, a rapid capabilities office, or a national security organization responsible for accelerated capability delivery.
• Experience with Satellite Control, TT&C, space-ground integration, command and control, mission management, terrestrial mission systems, or other space mission infrastructure.
• Experience serving as a chief engineer, chief architect, lead integrator, enterprise architect, technical director, or comparable full-effort technical authority for a complex program or portfolio.
• Experience developing or executing Technical Direction Plans, integrated master schedules, stakeholder analyses, architectural assessments, OV-1 or SV-1 products, test and demonstration strategies, transition criteria, or comparable project-defining artifacts.
• Experience evaluating technology readiness, conducting fit-gap or alternatives analyses, planning relevant-environment demonstrations, and using defined knowledge points and exit criteria to guide prototype commitment or transition decisions.
• Experience with modular open architectures, open interfaces, digital engineering, model-based methods, digital threads, data-rights strategy, commercial technology evaluation, or competitive prototyping.
• Experience integrating cybersecurity and RMF considerations into design, test, fielding, and transition, including authority-to-connect, authority-to-test, or authority-to-operate activities.
• Experience transitioning prototype capabilities to an operational user or owning organization, including interface documentation, training, operational acceptance, sustainment, and follow-on development planning.
• Current Special Access Program eligibility or experience.

Required Certifications: None
U.S. Citizenship Required: Yes
Security Clearance Required: Top Secret/SCI 
Employment Type: Regular Full-time
Background Check Type: 7 Year Pre-Employment
Drug Screen Required: None
Position Contingent Upon Contract Award: No