Principal Solutions EngineerPosition Summary:- The Principal Solutions Engineer is the senior technical authority for how the organization designs, proposes, standardizes, and improves its solutions. The role spans the division's markets, including Electronic Security Systems (ESS), critical power systems, communications infrastructure, and mission systems, for Federal and non-Federal customers. It is a horizontal individual-contributor position assigned by the Director wherever the division requires technical definition, standards, solution development, or process improvement. The Principal Solutions Engineer works across programs, engineering, production, quality, Business Development, and enterprise shared services and exercises cross-functional technical leadership without replacing functional management or designated engineering release authority.
- Fully onsite in Chesapeake, VA.
Job Description:Technical Architecture & Solution Development- Define system architectures and reference designs for the division's solution families and establish the platforms, components, configurations, and technical approaches from which repeatable solutions are built.
- Develop the technical basis for bids and projects, including requirements traceability, design calculations, capacity analysis, cybersecurity substantiation, bills of material, and basis-of-estimate inputs.
- Translate customer, contractual, operational, cybersecurity, and infrastructure requirements into integrated, executable technical solutions.
- Evaluate new technologies, platforms, manufacturers, and partners for technical fit, compliance, interoperability, lifecycle risk, supportability, and cost implications.
- Advise senior leadership on technology direction, technical investment, capability gaps, and expansion into new markets or solution areas.
Proposal & Capture Support- Serve as lead technical author or independent technical reviewer on strategic pursuits, translating solicitation requirements into compliant, defensible, and executable technical volumes.
- Develop and maintain the division's proposal engineering methods, including requirements extraction, compliance matrices, design registers, verification checks, assumptions, and technical review gates.
- Partner with Business Development, Program Management, Engineering, estimating, contracts, and other contributors to ensure proposed solutions align with customer requirements and can be successfully executed after award.
- Support pricing analysis and win strategy with technical input, including technical cost drivers, price-to-win considerations, competitor solution assessment, and lessons learned from awards and losses.
- Provide independent technical challenge to proposed solutions and identify unresolved requirements, technical risk, execution risk, or unsupported assumptions before submission.
Engineering Standards & Configuration- Own and maintain the division's master bills of material, standard configurations, estimating standards, reference designs, and calculation methods, keeping them current for lifecycle, compliance, availability, and pricing.
- Establish standards for how designs are documented, verified, reviewed, and prepared for release in coordination with the Engineering technical authority, which retains formal design-release approval.
- Establish configuration-control expectations for reusable technical content, approved solution components, design assumptions, calculations, and estimating inputs.
- Transfer standards, templates, tools, reference designs, and supporting documentation into controlled organizational libraries with defined ownership and maintenance responsibilities.
- Drive consistency across programs while allowing documented project-specific deviations when customer, site, contractual, or technical conditions require them.
Process Improvement, Tools & Automation- Lead approved cross-functional transformation initiatives from intake - including sponsor, desired outcome, success metric, scope, and ownership - through execution, validation, and handoff to the owning function.
- Develop software tools and automation that make engineering, proposal, and operational processes repeatable, including scripted extraction and reconciliation of documents and workbooks, generators for estimates and registers, and data analysis over bid and project records.
- Develop and apply AI-assisted workflows with appropriate human verification, data-handling controls, traceability, and quality checks.
- Use project startup, execution results, proposal outcomes, lessons learned, and quality findings to identify root causes and feed corrective improvements back into standards, tools, and processes.
- Report initiative status, measurable results, unresolved dependencies, and handoff actions through the division's operating cadence.
Technical Leadership & Cross-Functional Support- Provide senior technical guidance across programs and pursuits when issues cross functional, program, or technology boundaries.
- Support technical site surveys, design reviews, project startup, complex troubleshooting, and customer technical discussions when senior architectural involvement is warranted.
- Mentor engineers, technical leads, estimators, proposal contributors, and other personnel in solution-development methods, standards, and technical decision-making.
- Coordinate across functions without line authority and escalate unresolved technical, compliance, or execution risks to the appropriate accountable leader.
Competencies- System Design - Integrated electronic system design from requirement through bill of material, including coverage, capacity, backup power, network, interfaces, and cybersecurity architecture.
- Proposal Engineering - Requirements extraction, compliance and traceability, definitive technical writing, technical review, and evaluation-factor discipline.
- Estimating - Labor and material estimating standards, basis-of-estimate development, technical cost drivers, and validation against awards and project actuals.
- Standards Management - Catalog structure, lifecycle and compliance tracking, configuration control, documentation, verification, and transfer to accountable owners.
- Software & Automation - Tool development, data extraction and reconciliation, analysis and reporting, and AI-assisted workflows with verification controls.
- Initiative Leadership - Cross-functional coordination without line authority, clear outcomes and metrics, disciplined execution, and formal handoff.
- Technical Judgment - Ability to distinguish between preferred practice, contractual requirement, engineering necessity, and acceptable technical tradeoff.
- Communication & Influence - Ability to establish technical direction, challenge assumptions constructively, and gain alignment across functions without relying on organizational authority.
Required Qualifications:- Must have a Bachelor of Science degree in Electrical, Computer, Systems, or a closely related engineering discipline from an ABET-accredited program.
- Must have 12+ years of engineering experience supporting DoD or Federal systems across more than one technical domain, including at least five years designing integrated electronic systems delivered under contract.
- Must have demonstrated authorship of technical proposal volumes, bills of material, design documentation, and basis-of-estimate inputs supporting competitively awarded Federal contracts.
- Must have working knowledge of Federal design and cybersecurity criteria applicable to core work, including UFC, UFGS, DoDI 8500.01, and NIST SP 800-53, with demonstrated ability to master the criteria set for a new market or customer.
- Must have design-level proficiency on at least two enterprise platforms within a core domain and demonstrated ability to reach comparable proficiency on new platforms.
- Must have programming proficiency sufficient to build, maintain, document, and validate production engineering tools without reliance on a dedicated software-development team.
- Must have demonstrated disciplined use of AI tools within engineering, proposal, or analytical workflows, including verification and data-handling controls.
- Must have an active DoD Secret security clearance
- Must have strong written and verbal communication skills with the ability to communicate complex technical issues to technical, operational, executive, and customer audiences.
Preferred Qualifications:- Master of Business Administration or master's degree in an engineering discipline preferred.
- 15+ years of engineering experience, including program-office or customer-side experience involving scope development, technical evaluation, or pricing negotiation preferred.
- Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP) certification preferred.
- Experience with data analysis and visualization tooling beyond spreadsheets, including SQL, Python data libraries, and dashboarding platforms preferred.
- Experience across multiple domains, such as ESS, communications infrastructure, critical power, networked systems, or mission systems preferred.
- Experience evaluating technology partners, OEM platforms, product lifecycles, and technical supply-chain risk preferred.
Security Requirements:- Must possess an active secret security clearance.
Travel Requirements:- Occasional travel- less than 25%
- If position requires travel by domestic flight or access to secure federal facilities/military bases, candidate must be able to obtain (by start of position) and maintain appropriate identification credentials, such as REAL ID. (More information regarding REAL ID can be found: https://www.dhs.gov/real-id
Physical Requirements:- Must be able to reach, climb, stoop, & kneel up to 75% of the time.
- Repetitive motion, climbing, balancing, stooping, kneeling, crouching, crawling, reaching, standing, walking, pushing, pulling, lifting, grasping, hearing, and visual acuity (depth perception).
- Must be able to lift up to 50 lbs.
- Moving about to accomplish tasks or moving from one worksite to another.
- Communicating with others to exchange information.
- Repeating motions that may include the wrists, hands and/or fingers.
- Subject to outside environmental conditions (extreme cold/heat), Inside or Outside / Noise levels
Pre-Employment Requirements:Any offer of employment with Valkyrie Enterprises is contingent upon the successful completion of all applicable pre-employment requirements. Depending on the position, these may include a criminal background investigation, employment and education verification, pre-employment drug screening, driving record review, security clearance eligibility, government installation access, and any other customer or contract-specific requirements. Failure to successfully meet any required pre-employment condition may result in the withdrawal of the contingent offer of employment.
Additionally, Valkyrie Enterprises provides a variety of benefits to eligible employees to support your best health, wellness, and future, to include medical/dental/vision options, company paid life and disability insurances, 401(k) with match, education reimbursement, as well as company paid holidays and paid time off (PTO).
Pay Range: $125,000 - $175,000 per year
