Expert Solution Architect Engineer (Space Programs)

Mercury Systems • Hudson, NH

1d

About The Position

As an Expert Systems/Solution Architect Engineer at Mercury, you will design scalable, open architectures for spaceborne and strategic radiation-hardened EO/IR and RF sensing systems. You will define how payload data is acquired, conditioned, digitized, processed, fused, stored, recorded, and transmitted in constrained mission environments. The role leads cross-functional teams, serves as the primary technical liaison with customers, and architects sensing solutions that inform Mercury’s future product strategy. It calls for an investigative mindset, a customer-first approach, adaptability in presentations, technical leadership in strategic pursuits, and contributions to white papers, proposals, and formal customer requests.

In addition to core architecture work, the position leads the Advanced Concepts Group Space Strategic Initiative, including market evaluations and alignment with Mercury’s strategic operating plans. This involves assessing operational footprints, reducing organizational silos, building partnerships, and standardizing offerings across business units. The initiative emphasizes scalable solutions, open standards, broader stakeholder engagement, and direct interaction with end customers.

An active Top Secret clearance is required. The role requires approximately 25% travel to customer and Mercury sites. Mercury is a technology company supporting aerospace and defense missions, with more than 2,300 employees in 24 locations worldwide. Its culture emphasizes collaboration, communication, transparency, lifelong learning, skills training, and tuition reimbursement.

Requirements

• Bachelor’s degree or higher in Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, or a related field.
• At least 12 years of systems engineering or architecture experience in spaceborne, radiation-hardened, RF, sensing, payload-processing, data-recording, or embedded-computing systems.
• Expertise in requirements development, systems engineering, verification, validation, qualification, and deployment.
• Experience leading cross-functional teams and technically directing complex programs.
• Strong customer-facing, investigative, problem-solving, communication, presentation, and technical-writing skills.
• Experience preparing technical publications, white papers, bids, and proposals.
• Ability to align differentiated EO/IR and RF edge-processing solutions with customer and mission requirements.
• Active U.S. Top Secret clearance required; clearances may be granted only to U.S. citizens.
• Ability to travel approximately 25% to customer and Mercury sites.

Nice To Haves

• TS/SCI eligibility preferred.

Responsibilities

• Architect and evaluate open-standards-based EO/IR and RF payload-processing modules and subsystems.
• Define end-to-end data-path architectures, interfaces, requirements, and performance targets.
• Lead customer engagements and translate mission needs into hardware and software requirements.
• Design AI/ML-enabled on-orbit processing for target identification, data prioritization, feature extraction, sensor fusion, and selective data reduction.
• Address system-level constraints involving data rates, gain, noise, latency, throughput, synchronization, storage, power, thermal performance, radiation, and communications bandwidth.
• Assess technical risks, qualification requirements, costs, schedules, and long-term supportability.
• Mitigate Single Event Effects through component selection, circuit design, fault-tolerant architectures, and software controls.
• Lead trade studies involving heterogeneous processing, mixed-signal integration, and chip-scale packaging.
• Monitor advances in radiation-hardened sensors, RF components, converters, processors, SSDRs, AI/ML, and data-reduction technologies.
• Advance EO/IR, RF, ADC, and DAC architectures for GEOINT, SIGINT, COMINT, ELINT, and electronic warfare systems across L, S, C, X, Ku, Ka, and W bands.
• Support white papers, proposals, RFIs, RFPs, RFQs, customer responses, and technical presentations.
• Provide technical support for space, naval, munitions, intelligence, and defense programs.
• Support space-related mergers and acquisitions by evaluating technical and strategic risks and opportunities.
• Establish partnerships with semiconductor manufacturers, research institutions, government agencies, universities, laboratories, and defense contractors.
• Lead the Advanced Concepts Group Space Strategic Initiative, focusing on market evaluations and alignment with Mercury’s strategic operating plans.
• Assess operational footprints, break down organizational silos, build collaborative partnerships, and standardize offerings across business units.
• Engage directly with end customers and expand stakeholder engagement to foster innovation and long-term growth.

Benefits

• Tuition reimbursement
• Comprehensive skills training

What This Job Offers

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