Lead Comms & Networking C2 Engineer

The MITRE Corporation • Aberdeen, MD

3d • $147,200 - $220,800 • Onsite

About The Position

MITRE is seeking a Lead Communications and Networking Command and Control (C2) Engineer to serve as a Deputy Trailboss for Army Next Generation Command and Control (NGC2). The role shapes and delivers interoperable capabilities responsive to operational-unit needs, providing technical leadership across C2 applications, data services, tactical transport networks, and cloud and edge infrastructure to improve mission-level, system-of-systems performance.

The position is within MITRE’s Advanced Wireless & SATCOM Department, which provides communications engineering, networking, and systems analysis capabilities in support of national security missions. The engineer will work across acquisition stakeholders, operational units, and industry partners, integrating architectures and capabilities for Army missions, including disconnected, degraded, intermittent, or limited-bandwidth environments.

This position requires working onsite five days a week. Travel approximately monthly to operational-unit locations, exercises, or fielding events is required, including travel to the U.S. West Coast and Pacific region. The candidate must be eligible to obtain and maintain a Secret U.S. Government security clearance and must be a U.S. citizen to be considered for clearance.

Requirements

• Typically, at least 8 years of related experience with a bachelor’s degree; 6 years with a master’s degree; or 3 years with a Ph.D.; an equivalent combination of related education and work experience is also accepted.
• Strong networking engineering foundation, including TCP/IP, routing and switching, wide-area or tactical transport, network performance, and network architecture across heterogeneous, multi-vendor environments.
• Demonstrated experience leading complex communications, network-centric command-and-control, or comparable multi-system architecture, integration, test, or fielding initiatives.
• Ability to analyze and explain tradeoffs among network transport, application services, data movement, compute infrastructure, and security while maintaining deep expertise in networking.
• Experience translating operational needs into technical requirements, mission or system threads, architecture and interface descriptions, and plans for evaluating capability performance.
• Proven technical leadership and collaboration with government sponsors, operational users, and cross-organizational engineering teams; ability to manage competing priorities and reach practical technical decisions.
• Strong written, verbal, and briefing skills, including the ability to communicate technical issues as clear options, risks, and recommendations for technical and nontechnical stakeholders.
• Willingness and ability to travel approximately monthly to operational-unit locations, exercises, or fielding events, including the U.S. West Coast and Pacific region.
• Must be eligible to obtain and maintain a Secret U.S. Government-issued security clearance; U.S. citizenship is required for clearance eligibility.
• Must work onsite five days a week.

Nice To Haves

• Experience supporting Army acquisition programs, command-and-control modernization, unit fielding, and the operational needs and force structure of corps, division, or brigade organizations.
• Experience engineering or evaluating tactical communications in DDIL and contested environments, including MANET and mesh radios, SATCOM, tactical 5G, transport diversity, and network resiliency.
• Familiarity with modern C2 application and data-layer architectures, including common operational picture, event-driven data exchange, APIs, data synchronization, or platforms such as Anduril, Raft, Palantir, or equivalent solutions.
• Working knowledge of cloud-native and edge computing architectures, including containers and Kubernetes, virtualization, tactical compute hosting, and operations with intermittent backhaul connectivity.
• Familiarity with interoperability and tactical data standards, such as Cursor on Target (CoT), Link 16, relevant message and data models, and interface control documentation.
• Experience developing or evaluating mission threads and system-of-systems trade studies using model-based systems engineering (MBSE), architecture frameworks, modeling and simulation, or quantitative performance testing.
• Experience planning and leading operational integration events, multi-vendor demonstrations, soldier touchpoints, or field exercises and using observations to shape subsequent capability increments.

Responsibilities

• Serve as a senior technical integrator and NGC2 Deputy Trailboss, shaping priorities, coordinating execution, and driving delivery of integrated C2 capabilities across acquisition stakeholders, operational units, and industry partners.
• Lead end-to-end architectures spanning C2 applications, data layers, tactical IP transport, resilient communications, and cloud and edge compute infrastructure to meet Army mission needs, including in DDIL environments.
• Develop and connect operational mission threads, technical threads, system-of-systems designs, requirements, and interface assumptions to measurable operational outcomes and testable technical objectives.
• Evaluate cross-layer architecture tradeoffs involving routing, bandwidth, latency, reliability, cybersecurity, interoperability, data exchange, synchronization, and placement of workloads at the edge versus in the cloud.
• Organize and participate in laboratory integration, technical demonstrations, operational exercises, and iterative fielding events.
• Coordinate root-cause analysis, integration-risk resolution, and performance assessment across vendor solutions.
• Engage with government acquisition sponsors, Army operational users, and industry engineering teams to reconcile competing requirements, develop interface agreements, and provide independent technical recommendations.
• Produce and review engineering artifacts such as CONOPS, architecture diagrams, interface descriptions, trade studies, test plans, mission-thread analyses, and sponsor briefings.
• Mentor staff and reinforce technical quality through peer review.

What This Job Offers

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