Senior Vice President, Chief Engineer

Astrion•UNAVAILABLE, Colorado

About The Position

Astrion is hiring a Senior Vice President, Chief Engineer to lead enterprise-wide technical direction, engineering excellence, and product development strategy. The role provides technical leadership across the Platform organization and six Mission Segments, uniting engineers, scientists, architects, and technologists around a common engineering capability. It guides the evolution of Astrion technology platforms—including CORE, Horizon, Meridian, and Tactical Edge—and their integration with mission-specific systems and products. This hands-on technical leadership position shapes what Astrion builds, integrates, and pursues through partnerships. The Chief Engineer establishes engineering standards, architecture principles, technical review processes, and development practices that support rapid delivery without compromising quality, security, reliability, or mission performance. The role works with technical and business leaders to turn complex mission requirements into scalable, reusable technology solutions and operational capabilities. The position is available in Arlington, Virginia; Columbia, Maryland; Huntsville, Alabama; Denver, Colorado; or another major Astrion engineering location. Travel is up to 30%. The role requires U.S. citizenship and the ability to obtain and maintain a Top Secret security clearance; an active TS/SCI clearance is preferred.

Requirements

Bachelor's degree in Engineering, Computer Science, Physics, Applied Mathematics, or a related technical discipline.
20 or more years of progressive engineering experience, including significant technical leadership responsibility.
Demonstrated experience leading large, geographically distributed engineering organizations or providing enterprise technical leadership across multiple engineering teams.
Proven track record architecting, developing, integrating, and delivering complex hardware/software systems.
Experience guiding technology and product development across multiple programs or business units.
Deep understanding of modern systems engineering, open architectures, and engineering lifecycle management.
Ability to communicate complex technical issues clearly to executive leadership, customers, engineers, and nontechnical stakeholders.
U.S. citizenship and ability to obtain and maintain a Top Secret security clearance.

Nice To Haves

Master's degree or Ph.D. in an engineering or technical discipline.
Active Top Secret or TS/SCI clearance.
Experience at a leading defense technology company, major aerospace and defense prime, advanced research organization, or commercial technology company developing mission-critical systems.
Prior experience as an enterprise Chief Engineer, Chief Systems Engineer, CTO, or equivalent technical executive.
Experience establishing reusable technology platforms and transitioning services-based engineering capabilities into commercializable products.
Experience leading major technical transformations involving MBSE, digital engineering, AI-enabled engineering, and open architecture adoption.
Experience with both defense hardware development and commercial software engineering practices.
Experience guiding technology investment decisions, technical due diligence, and strategic industry partnerships.

Responsibilities

Define and lead Astrion's enterprise engineering vision and provide technical direction and oversight across the Platform organization and all six Mission Segments.
Establish a unified engineering vision connecting mission expertise, software capabilities, hardware development, systems engineering, and technology investments.
Define enterprise engineering principles, technical standards, architecture frameworks, and development methodologies that promote reuse, interoperability, scalability, and rapid technology delivery.
Guide engineering decisions across programs, products, demonstrations, and technology investments, aligning solutions with customer requirements, business objectives, and long-term platform strategy.
Establish and lead an enterprise technical community connecting Chief Engineers, Systems Architects, Software Architects, Hardware Engineers, and technical subject matter experts.
Develop and mentor engineering leaders and foster innovation, ownership, accountability, and disciplined execution.
Guide the architecture and evolution of Astrion's Platform, including CORE, Horizon, Meridian, Tactical Edge, and future enterprise technology products.
Ensure technology products use common architectural principles, interfaces, data standards, and reusable capabilities while meeting mission-specific needs.
Lead the transition from program-specific engineering solutions and services to scalable hardware, software, and integrated technology products.
Partner with Platform product owners and Mission Segment leaders to develop technology roadmaps, define product requirements, evaluate tradeoffs, and prioritize investments.
Establish practices that advance technologies from concept and prototype through integration, testing, production, deployment, and sustainment.
Drive modular product architectures that support rapid configuration and deployment across defense, space, intelligence, and commercial applications.
Evaluate emerging technologies and determine whether to develop proprietary capabilities, integrate commercial technologies, partner, or acquire external capabilities.
Establish an enterprise systems engineering framework covering requirements, architecture, interfaces, modeling and simulation, integration, verification, validation, and lifecycle management.
Lead adoption of Model-Based Systems Engineering, digital engineering, digital twins, simulation-driven development, and automated engineering workflows.
Drive adoption of Modular Open Systems Approach principles and relevant open architecture standards, including SOSA, OMS/UCI, FACE, CMOSS, and VICTORY.
Ensure systems are designed for interoperability across sensors, communications networks, command and control systems, autonomous platforms, mission applications, and effectors.
Establish common engineering approaches for enterprise cloud, tactical edge, embedded computing, real-time systems, autonomous platforms, and distributed mission architectures.
Guide architecture development for Battle Management Command and Control, integrated sensing and fires, autonomy, space operations, and multi-domain mission systems.
Lead technical trade studies and architecture decisions addressing performance, reliability, security, affordability, scalability, and operational effectiveness.
Provide technical leadership across software, electronics, embedded computing, sensors, communications, mechanical systems, autonomy, AI/ML, and integrated mission systems.
Partner with the VP, Platform Software Lead Architect to align software architectures, development practices, and software factory capabilities with enterprise systems engineering and product architecture.
Guide software integration with enterprise infrastructure, tactical computing hardware, embedded processors, sensors, autonomous vehicles, and mission-specific platforms.
Establish engineering practices for real-time and non-real-time systems, including latency-sensitive processing, distributed computing, resilient communications, and operation in disconnected or contested environments.
Drive integration of artificial intelligence, machine learning, sensor fusion, optimization, predictive analytics, and decision-support technologies into operational systems.
Ensure hardware and software products support manufacturability, testability, maintainability, cybersecurity, reliability, and long-term sustainment.
Establish enterprise technical review standards and lead major reviews, including SRR, PDR, CDR, and TRR.
Lead independent technical assessments of strategically important programs, emerging technologies, and high-risk engineering efforts.
Identify and resolve critical technical risks before they affect cost, schedule, performance, or customer commitments.
Work with Program Managers and Mission Segment Chief Engineers to resolve difficult engineering challenges, recover technical performance, and accelerate delivery.
Establish engineering metrics for technical maturity, requirements stability, defect trends, integration readiness, test coverage, reliability, and product development velocity.
Improve engineering productivity through automation, AI-enabled engineering tools, digital workflows, simulation, and modern development practices.
Promote disciplined experimentation, rapid prototyping, incremental capability delivery, and learning through testing.
Balance engineering rigor with speed to deliver mission-critical capabilities on aggressive schedules.
Partner with Strategy, Platform, Growth, and Mission Segment leadership to identify customer capability gaps and develop differentiated technical solutions.
Serve as a senior technical advisor in strategic captures, solution development, demonstrations, and major proposal efforts.
Lead technical assessments of potential partners, emerging technologies, strategic investments, and acquisition targets.
Engage with senior government customers, operational users, industry partners, research organizations, and technology companies to understand future mission requirements.
Translate operational challenges into enterprise technology roadmaps and product development priorities.
Represent Astrion in customer engagements, industry forums, technical exchanges, and strategic partnerships.