Senior Modeling & Simulation Engineer Lead
About The Position
Aether Aerospace seeks a Senior Modeling & Simulation Engineer to lead Modern Air Combat Environment (MACE) scenario development, model configuration, and simulation execution for an operations analysis study supporting a commercial aerospace and defense customer. The study will assess the comparative mission effectiveness of precision-strike and electronic-warfare capabilities in representative U.S. Army aviation, launched-effects, and ground-force scenarios. The technical lead will translate the approved study plan into executable simulations, establish consistent comparison cases, verify model behavior, and provide documented simulation outputs to the study's operations analysts. This hands-on technical leadership position works closely with the study lead, analysts, subject-matter experts, and customer representatives. The anticipated project duration is approximately six months, with potential extension based on project needs and continued funding. The ideal candidate will be local to the Tidewater/Newport News, Virginia area. The role is planned for approximately 31.2 hours per week (748.8 total planned hours). Both W-2 employment and 1099 independent contractor arrangements will be considered, subject to applicable requirements. Compensation is based on the agreed arrangement, relevant experience, and applicable contract requirements; the annualized salary figure is for reference and does not represent guaranteed earnings for the six-month assignment.
Requirements
- Active Secret Clearance.
- Bachelor's degree in engineering, computer science, operations research, applied mathematics, physics, or a related technical discipline; equivalent relevant experience may be considered.
- Demonstrated hands-on experience developing, configuring, executing, and troubleshooting MACE scenarios.
- Experience leading technical modeling work or serving as the principal model developer for a simulation-based study.
- Working knowledge of military mission modeling, including platforms, sensors, threats, engagements, and mission-level interactions.
- Experience verifying simulation behavior and assessing model capabilities, limitations, and suitability for an intended study.
- Ability to execute controlled comparison cases, repeated runs, and sensitivity cases while maintaining consistent configurations and complete execution records.
- Experience configuring MACE output collection and providing documented simulation results to an analysis team.
- Ability to explain simulation behavior and distinguish modeled events, assumptions, and limitations.
- Strong technical writing, briefing, troubleshooting, and collaboration skills.
- Ability to meet applicable access and data-handling requirements for assigned work.
Nice To Haves
- Advanced degree in a relevant technical discipline.
- Experience with Army aviation, aircraft survivability, launched effects, precision fires, electronic warfare, or mission effectiveness modeling.
- Experience representing interactions between aviation and ground-force operations.
- Familiarity with DIS interfaces and simulation interoperability.
- Experience with MACE scripting, APIs, or C# extensions.
- Experience supporting commercial or government studies with formal review milestones and controlled technical deliverables.
Responsibilities
- Lead MACE scenario development, model configuration, simulation execution, troubleshooting, and technical documentation.
- Translate approved operational vignettes into executable scenarios with defined force structures, mission objectives, initial conditions, transition conditions, and termination criteria.
- Establish a common baseline and configure controlled comparison cases that isolate the effects of the capabilities being evaluated.
- Configure platform, sensor, threat, weapon, communications, and electronic-warfare representations using available MACE capabilities and approved technical data.
- Assess MACE's ability to represent required interactions and capture required outputs; identify model limitations, data gaps, and requirements for additional technical support.
- Develop and execute verification checks covering scenario initialization, entity behavior, event sequencing, engagement logic, and output consistency.
- Execute repeated runs and sensitivity cases specified by the analysis team; document run-to-run variation, controllable settings, and limits on repeatability.
- Configure simulation logging and output collection to capture the events and measures required by the approved study plan.
- Maintain configuration identifiers, model and data versions, input settings, execution status, and output locations.
- Investigate failed or anomalous runs, document their disposition, and preserve traceability between original and corrected executions.
- Provide organized simulation outputs and configuration records to analysts for data reduction, statistical analysis, and interpretation.
- Support analysts by explaining model behavior, investigating unexpected outcomes, and identifying assumptions or limitations that affect interpretation.
- Contribute modeling content to study plans, technical reviews, verification memoranda, results briefings, final reports, and an authorized reproducibility package.
- Coordinate technical issues with software vendors and other modeling specialists as needed.
- Follow applicable data-handling, software-license, export-control, and customer-release requirements.
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What This Job Offers
Job Type
Full-time
Career Level
Senior
