Systems Engineer - NREC

Carnegie Mellon University•Pittsburgh, PA

1d•Onsite

About The Position

At the National Robotics Engineering Center (NREC), engineers and technicians drive breakthroughs. The technical staff collaborates closely with leadership and multidisciplinary teams to design, build, and deploy sophisticated robotic solutions for industrial, commercial, and government sectors. The role involves working alongside world-class robotics professionals in a culture of professionalism, respect, and collaboration, offering a flexible and encouraging environment. The Systems Engineer will collaborate with team leaders across Carnegie Mellon University’s NREC, guiding projects from conception through deployment using a pragmatic systems engineering approach in a fast-paced, rapid-development environment. This role balances technical rigor with agility, whether driving a single large-scale initiative or guiding multiple concurrent development efforts. Successful applicants will have cross-disciplinary experience with deep technical strength in a core area, curiosity, and initiative to help teams navigate complex technical hurdles. Work may span machine operator assistance, agricultural automation, autonomous systems, or critical safety frameworks for commercial and defense clients. The position is instrumental in transforming cutting-edge concepts into field-ready robotic systems, ensuring exceptional and groundbreaking results.

Requirements

Bachelor’s degree in an engineering or related field, or equivalent experience
1-3 years of professional experience which includes demonstrated systems engineering skills
Demonstrated success in leading, working, and collaborating within a team
Self-motivated, curious, and failure-seeking to achieve continuous improvements and solve problems
Demonstrated ability to apply critical big picture thinking in completing tasks
Highly organized with the ability to work on multiple projects/tasks simultaneously and remain agile given changing priorities
Practices attention to detail, respect for documentation accuracy, and information sharing
Energetic and hands-on leader
Successful pre-employment background check
This position will require work on a variety of projects, including projects that involve military/defense applications and/or are funded by military/defense sponsors.

Nice To Haves

Experience with the development of a complex system such as for robotics and automation in a variety of industries, power plant design, rail control systems, automotive systems, or similar.
Experience with development operations, configuration management, quality assurance, procurement management, or release management
Software development experience
Experience with procurement of custom equipment or services and acceptance of procured items
Experience with applying industry standards and verification and validation methods
Experience with system modeling and requirements management tools and methods
Experience with use of engineering development tools typical for each subject area including software version control (git), project task tracking (Jira), and data and document/design configuration systems (various)
Experience with scoping of development projects and use of project tracking tools

Responsibilities

Define high-level and detailed requirements, establish priorities, and deliver projects successfully through collaboration with key partners, business managers, and engineers to build consensus around architectural solutions.
Lead team members in effort analysis, issue resolution, change and risk management, quality assurance making use of tracking tools, methods, and software development systems such as Jira, Confluence, Bitbucket, and other custom tools.
Lead creation and maintenance of documentation and model-based system engineering artifacts over the entire project lifecycle for systems that span several hardware and software fields at an appropriate level of fidelity.
Guide and perform engineering tasks including design and trade studies.
Support system testing and functional demonstrations.
Perform project management tasks including scheduling, staffing, and budgeting in collaboration with project manager for large projects or independently for smaller projects.
Contribute to organization-wide methods and standard methodologies for system and project engineering.