Principal Systems Engineer

General Overview

APEX TK is seeking a highly skilled Principal Engineering 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.