Principal Acquisition Advisor (Intelligence Center)

The MITRE Corporation•Hollymead, VA

1d•$157,200 - $235,800•Onsite

About The Position

MITRE is a not-for-profit corporation chartered to work for the public interest, with no commercial conflicts to influence what we do. The R&D centers we operate for the government create lasting impact in fields as diverse as cybersecurity, healthcare, aviation, defense, and enterprise transformation. We're making a difference every day—working for a safer, healthier, and more secure nation and world. Our workplace reflects our values. We offer competitive benefits, exceptional professional development opportunities for career growth, and a culture of innovation that embraces adaptability, collaboration, technical excellence, and people in partnership. Our Geospatial Intelligence team provides skills and capabilities to task, order, receive, process, disseminate, and exploit national, tactical, and commercial Intelligence within an integrated architecture in support of Geospatial Intelligence users. We support and enable the production of intelligence and situational awareness for national and warfighter security, targeting, command and control, and humanitarian aid. Our capabilities include requirements and mission workflow analysis for sensor platforms and ground systems, specialized computing platforms, architecture design and integration of data and systems in support of exploitation processes, advanced analytics, and integrated intelligence analysis from seabed to space.

Requirements

Typically requires a minimum of 10 years of related experience with a Bachelor’s degree; or 8years and a Master’s degree; or a PhD with 5years’ experience; or equivalent combination of related education and work experience.
Typically requires a minimum of 8 years of related experience with a Bachelor’s degree; or 6 years and a Master’s degree; or 3 years and a PhD; or equivalent combination of related education and work experience.
Demonstrated experience navigating or improving DoW acquisition processes in programs, portfolios, or enterprise settings.
Working knowledge of the Adaptive Acquisition Framework (AAF), including the Software Acquisition Pathway, and related requirements and resourcing processes.
Practical knowledge of acquisition mechanisms such as OTAs, FAR-based strategies, and innovation pathways to enable adaptive delivery approaches.
Experience implementing modern acquisition approaches in traditional acquisition or AAF environments.
Demonstrated ability to lead cross-functional working groups and drive change across organizational boundaries with measurable improvement.
Experience supporting or implementing governance improvements.
Strong analytical, facilitation, and stakeholder engagement skills.
Strong critical thinking, problem-solving, and communication skills.
Ability to operate in dynamic sponsor environments with evolving objectives.
Active TS/SCI with polygraph
U.S. Citizenship required.
This position has an on-site requirement of 5 days a week on-site

Nice To Haves

Executive leadership, with demonstrated experience serving as a trusted sponsor resource or advisor within the IC/DoW, with demonstrated experience leading extensive, complex engagements delivering successful projects, with the ability to span from strategic to tactical during daily engagements with the sponsor
Understanding of the IC and DoW Acquisition Environments, policy, and practices to include recent DoW Acquisition Transformation elements
Demonstrated experience as a federal government resource professional (e.g., Planning, Programming, Budgeting, and Execution (PPBE) process and structure)
Change and organizational management experience related to transitioning an agency/business through extensive organizational, acquisition, and financial management changes
Personnel Management and Leadership
Extensive experience with acquisition governance and/or PEO operating experience (or senior PM level experience)
Experience with Adaptive Acquisition Framework and Acquisition Pathways, acquisition policy, and processes
Experience with designing and preparing executive level products and written deliverables (i.e., policy references, memo’s, executive correspondence, etc.)

Responsibilities

Lead transformation in how defense acquisition processes operate within existing statutory and regulatory frameworks. This role contributes acquisition process expertise that complements technical modernization leaders; and it includes streamlining governance, reducing friction across requirements, engineering, acquisition, and budgeting processes, and enabling adoption of modern acquisition approaches to facilitate continuous capability delivery.
Shape and scale acquisition execution models across sponsor portfolios to better enable incremental capability delivery and continuous value realization.
Advance acquisition approaches that improve software acquisition execution and enable interoperable, mission-ready capabilities across the Department of War.
Influence governance structures, decision forums, and oversight approaches to align acquisition control mechanisms with modern engineering and delivery practices.
Design practical execution architectures that integrate requirements, funding, contracting, engineering, test, and sustainment into synchronized delivery systems.
Partner with engineering leaders to ensure acquisition strategies reinforce — rather than constrain — DevSecOps, iterative development, and platform-based approaches.
Reframe performance management from milestone completion toward measurable delivery outcomes.
Identify systemic barriers within acquisition structures (organizational, financial, cultural, or procedural) and implement pragmatic transformation strategies that improve portfolio throughput.
Guide sponsors in structuring acquisition pathways — including Software Pathway, hybrid models, and alternative contracting mechanisms — to accelerate transition from prototype to continuous capability delivery.
Advise senior leaders on portfolio-level prioritization, sequencing, and risk trade-offs to improve capability delivery performance.
Contribute to development of repeatable frameworks, playbooks, and reference models that can be applied across multiple sponsors to institutionalize modernization gains.
Serve as a trusted advisor to program teams and senior leaders.
Proactively help sponsors identify and shape modernization opportunities.
Build and sustain trusted relationships across sponsors, FFRDC partners, industry, and academic stakeholders to support integrated modernization efforts.
Serve as an active member of multidisciplinary teams integrating acquisition, engineering, and delivery expertise to improve capability outcomes.