MDR is seeking a highly skilled
PrincipalEngineer to provide engineering oversight for target system payloads and countermeasure development. In this role, you will act as a trusted advisor to the program office, delivering critical assessments of prime contractor designs, technical plans, and target instrumentation layouts. You will serve as a technical anchor during major program milestones-from System Requirements through Product Acceptance-while seamlessly collaborating across multiple organizations, modeling teams, cost analysts, and schedulers to ensure items are delivered accurately and on time.
What You'll Be Doing:Engineering Oversight & Design Assessment- Expert Advisory: Serve as the technical expert on payload and countermeasure requirements development, analysis, design, qualification, and fielding.
- Independent Evaluation: Review and provide assessments of prime contractor designs, plans, reports, and technical procedures.
- Instrumentation Analysis: Evaluate target instrumentation requirements, physical layouts, component selection, and testing methodologies
Program Milestone & Lifecycle Support- Milestone Reviews: Provide technical evaluation and engineering support during all major program milestones (including SRR, PDR, CDR, TRR, FRB, MRB, and PAR).
- Cross-Agency Coordination: Answer technical inquiries from external MDA organizations and lead multi-disciplinary Technical Interchange Meetings (TIMs).
Program Management & Operations Collaboration- Cost Estimation: Provide technical assessments to the cost analysis team to ensure accurate program management budget estimates.
- Schedule Alignment: Partner with the program scheduler to track delivery deadlines and proactively keep leadership advised of status.
What Required Skills You'll Bring:- Security Clearance: Active DoD Secret clearance
- Education & Experience: Master's degree in STEM and 12+ years supporting missile defense or large-scale, complex DoD programs.
- Program Execution: Experience managing end-to-end program lifecycles, including the development, testing, and fielding of complex systems.
- Adaptability: Thrive in a fast-paced environment where priorities change quickly.
- Multitasking: Handle multiple urgent tasks at once without losing focus.
- Travel: Able to support travel request up to 20% of the time.
What Desired Skills You'll Bring:- Understanding of IR/RCS signatures for flight objects and countermeasures.
- Experience with material properties and material property measurements.
- Knowledge of real-world threat systems and how they impact target designs.
- Have an understanding of MDA flight test requirements and apply that to the payload hardware development.
- Technical proposal development and evaluation.
Position Requirements- Clearance Required
- Position Level
- FT/PT
- Years Related Work Experience
- Education Level Required
