Director, Chief Engineer

TRIDENT SYSTEMS • Fairfax, VA

2d • Onsite

About The Position

At Trident Systems Space Electronic Systems (SES) division, we believe in the power of using strong engineering principles to drive innovation and solve complex problems. We foster a culture of rigorous engineering and continuous improvement, leveraging the full knowledge of our organization through collaborative product development processes that include design and peer reviews. We combine our expertise in space electronics with right-sized development processes to create innovative, high-performance space-based electronic systems that meet our customers' evolving needs. We are a mission partner supporting DoD, Intelligence Community, and Civil space customers. We develop complex, radiation effects mitigated, designs that balance competing requirements in modern space programs, delivering cutting-edge solutions that enable our customers to achieve more in space.

Position Summary
Reporting directly to the EVP of Engineering, the Director, Chief Engineer serves as the primary technical authority for major space systems and advanced engineering initiatives. This role is responsible for driving the strategic technical roadmap, system architecture, integration, testing, and delivery of high-performance CPU and GPU processing platforms to meet rigorous technical, cost, and schedule commitments. Providing director-level technical governance, this position ensures seamless alignment across product strategy, high-density edge computing architectures, and enterprise engineering standards. Success in this role is reflected in predictable executive-level engineering execution, proactive risk management, cross-functional organizational alignment, and the delivery of fully verified, radiation-mitigated computing solutions that solve our customers’ most complex space processing challenges.

Requirements

• Bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, or a related technical discipline (Master’s or Ph.D. strongly preferred).
• 15+ years of relevant engineering experience (or 13+ years with an advanced degree), including 5+ years in a senior technical leadership or director-level engineering capacity.
• Proven track record of delivering complex aerospace, defense, space-qualified, or mission-critical computing hardware systems.
• Extensive background in system architecture, high-performance edge computing, system integration, and verification for embedded systems.
• Excellent executive communication, strategic planning, cross-functional leadership, and technical problem-solving capabilities.

Nice To Haves

• Deep technical expertise in high-performance CPU architectures, multi-core processing, GPU-accelerated compute pipelines, heterogeneous processing, and CUDA/GPGPU architectures adapted for space environments.
• Experience delivering radiation-hardened or radiation-mitigated, fault-tolerant CPU and GPU hardware/software architectures for space platforms.
• Direct experience with secure boot, hardware-rooted trust, cryptography, and hardened operating systems (RTOS/Linux) on modern CPU/GPU platforms.
• Experience supporting transition-to-production and high-reliability/high-rate manufacturing operations for space electronics.

Responsibilities

• Serve as the chief technical authority and primary liaison for engineering technical execution, driving architectural decisions for mission-critical CPU and GPU space processing platforms.
• Lead the development of requirements, system integration strategies, and verification methodologies tailored for advanced heterogeneous computing, GPU acceleration, and multi-core CPU architectures.
• Proactively identify, manage, and mitigate complex technical risks and design issues, ensuring actionable, enterprise-aligned resolution plans.
• Direct customer-facing formal Program and System Reviews, including System Requirement Reviews (SRR), Preliminary Design Reviews (PDR), and Critical Design Reviews (CDR).
• Partner with engineering functional directors and leads on resource allocation, technical standards, and process maturation to ensure engineering execution directly aligns with overall cost, schedule, and mission objectives.
• Provide transparent, strategic technical status and risk reporting to the EVP of Engineering, executive leadership, board-level stakeholders, and key customer partners.
• Ability to support domestic travel or off-site technical integration activities as required.
• Perform other executive technical leadership duties as assigned.

Benefits

• Health benefits
• Medical
• Dental
• Vision
• Basic life with AD&D
• Short term disability
• Long term disability
• Ancillary (Voluntary life with AD&D, accident, critical illness, hospital, and pet)
• Spending accounts (HSA, FSA, and DCFSA)
• Paid time off
• Holidays
• 401(k) (including company match)
• Tuition reimbursement
• Leaves (Parental, maternity, and military)
• Annual discretionary bonus (for eligible roles)

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Director