Chief Capability Engineer, Experimentation

At MITRE, your passion fuels work that impacts our nation and improves lives. This is where your skills strengthen national security, cybersecurity, health, transportation, and citizen services. We’re a nonprofit engineering, applied research, and advanced technology organization working in the public interest. With objectivity and integrity at our core, we lead federally funded research and development centers for U.S. government agencies - collaborating with industry and academia to deliver integrated, high-impact solutions that advance our nation’s health, security, and prosperity. Our people tackle the toughest technical challenges, supported by competitive benefits, meaningful career development, and a culture of innovation, collaboration, and technical excellence. Choose MITRE for a career with purpose - and help shape the future.

About MITRE:

At MITRE, your passion fuels work that impacts our nation and improves lives. This is where your skills strengthen national security, cybersecurity, health, transportation, and citizen services. We’re a nonprofit engineering, applied research, and advanced technology organization working in the public interest. With independence and integrity at our core, we lead federally funded research and development centers for U.S. government agencies - collaborating with industry and academia to deliver integrated, high-impact solutions that advance our nation’s health, security, and prosperity. Our people tackle the toughest technical challenges, supported by competitive benefits, meaningful career development, and a culture of innovation, collaboration, and technical excellence.

Choose MITRE for a career with purpose - and help shape the future.

Sector Summary:

MITRE Technology & Engineering drives mission impact by delivering nation-leading, differentiated capabilities to a rich set of consequential national programs across the six Federally Funded Research and Development Centers (FFRDCs) that MITRE leads. Our goal is to develop solutions and deliver outcomes for our sponsors, to ensure the security, health, and prosperity of the American public. MITRE Technology & Engineering applies the expertise of technical staff and subject matter experts across our programs by fostering and developing technical talent, stewarding technical depth, conceiving and executing research, and ensuring MITRE’s capabilities-people, methods, labs, platforms, and environments-remain on the leading edge.

Department Summary:

MITRE Technology & Engineering’s Modeling and Analysis (M&A) Technical Division brings together researchers, engineers, mission specialists, and systems experts to translate advanced research into operationally relevant solutions. The Technical Division delivers differentiated capabilities across operational analysis, complex systems, modeling and simulation engineering, Human-in-the-Loop (HITL) experimentation, intelligence analysis, and organizational and operational performance.

M&A seeks a visionary technical leader to serve as Chief Engineer, Experimentation. This highly visible role will work with the division leadership team to define and drive the technical strategy, execution, and application of HITL experimentation including tabletop exercises, wargaming and simulation experimentation (SIMEX) to support national security and public sector missions. In this role, the CE will be a division leader that provides a shared capability in experimentation design, stakeholder and participant engagement, and development of modeling, simulation, and supporting tools. The CE will also grow and sustain communities of technical expertise to support experimentation across the division. The successful candidate is a proven technical leader who demonstrates technical excellence in these fields, inspirational leadership, creativity, and the flexibility to work across evolving and diverse problem sets.

The CE will collaborate with the Division Chief Engineer and division leadership team to bring experimentation capabilities to bear on MITRE’s FFRDC work programs. The CE, in coordination with the Division CE, will be accountable for the quality and utility of the division’s experimentation capabilities, including physical and virtual lab infrastructure, and shared frameworks and technical approaches. While not a formal people-management role, the CE will contribute to staff development and provide technical mentorship across the division.

In addition to direct work programs within the FFRDCs, the CE will engage with the internal research and development program, to influence and shape the research priorities and programs as well as mentor and guide staff all the way from the ideation phase through to proposing and executing internal research projects.

The CE will also provide individual, senior principal technical support directly to MITRE’s work programs. The CE’s time spent on direct sponsor contributions should be in technical leadership within the set of division capabilities.

Roles & Responsibilities:

Technical Quality and Impact

• Lead technical quality efforts and contribute to development/adoption of technical quality standards within key work programs and division-managed labs/capabilities supporting Human-in-the-Loop Experimentation
• Drive technical quality across Human-in-the-Loop Experimentation by leading capability development, including strategic investment recommendations, stewardship of physical & virtual infrastructure (as applicable), and curating technical development and mentorship opportunities.
• Collaborate with the Division CE, peer CEs, and partners in MNS and MPS to ensure technical strength of the work program by:
  • shaping content via participation in technical product definition and reviews
  • setting expectations for current work and the future work program
  • bringing a perspective grounded in technical domain knowledge and understanding of state of the art

Strategy Development & Innovation

• Execute and evolve Human-in-the-Loop Experimentation technical strategy aligned to MITRE’s Capability and Division technical strategies; identify opportunities to develop new areas and assess technical strengths/weaknesses within the capability scope.
• Identify innovation opportunities for Experimentation work programs and internal research and development; propose and/or lead cross-cutting initiatives as needed.
• Develop and maintain relationships with key technical leaders across MITRE program divisions, internal research and development, and external partners.
• Coordinate technical outreach to industry, academia, and other stakeholders to ensure best practices and relevant technologies are incorporated into technical products.
• Lead cross-Department and/or cross-Division technical initiatives, as needed, with measurable impact.

Capability Stewardship & Governance

• Conduct ongoing health and quality evaluations of Human-in-the-Loop Experimentation capabilities, including robustness of staff technical skills, division-managed facilities & infrastructure, mission-ready technology, platforms & frameworks, etc.
• Provide timely recommendations to Division leadership regarding standup, sustainment, or retirement of labs, infrastructure, tools, and frameworks supporting leading-edge delivery.

Staff Development (non-supervisory, but accountable for technical mentorship)

• Mentor and develop technical staff, including cultivating technical career paths within the division and across the capability
• Provide input to talent assessment and staff development planning

Direct Sponsor / Program Contributions

• Provide individual, differentiated technical contributions directly to sponsors and internal customers, focusing on technical leadership with measurable impact in Human-in-the-Loop Experimentation

Basic Qualifications:

• Minimum of 12 years of related experience with a Bachelor’s degree; or 10 years with a Master’s degree; or a PhD with 7 years’ experience; or equivalent combination of related education and work experience.
• Experience designing, executing and analyzing Human-in-the-Loop experimentation methodologies, such as: tabletop experimentation, wargaming, or SIMEX, for diverse set of government or national security sponsors
• Experience developing or applying modeling and simulation to support Human-in-the-Loop experimentation
• Demonstrated ability to exert meaningful influence over strategic decisions in complex, multi-stakeholder, collaborative environments.
• Demonstrated track record of learning about and rapidly responding to new problems across a variety of domains.
• Experience planning, executing, and presenting complex workstreams while balancing cost and schedule constraints.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills; ability to articulate challenging technical concepts to both non-expert and expert audiences.
• Mentoring experience, whether formal or informal roles, across the range of staff experience levels
• Demonstrated proficiency in both virtual and live presentations of complex technical issues.
• Must have an active Top Secret/SCI U.S Government issued Security Clearance. Per the U.S. Government’s eligibility requirements, you must be a U.S Citizen to be considered for a security clearance.
• This position requires a minimum of 4 days a week on-site.

Preferred Qualifications:

• MS or advanced degrees in Operations Research, Systems Engineering, Political Science, Human Factors, Psychology, Computer Science or similar field.
• 10+ years of experience applying modeling, simulation, and experimentation (MS&E) to complex, real-world mission problems (e.g., kill chains, infrastructure, military operations, strategic competition).
• Experience designing data collection and analysis plans for experiments
• Experience applying AI-enabled tools to wargaming or experimentation
• Demonstrated track record building strong internal and external partnerships.
• Experience leveraging solutions from leading academic and commercial research groups.

This requisition requires the candidate to have a minimum of the following clearance(s):

Top Secret/SCI

This requisition requires the hired candidate to have or obtain, within one year from the date of hire, the following clearance(s):

Top Secret/SCI

Salary compensation range and midpoint:

$196,000 - $245,000 - $294,000 Annual

Work Location Type:

Onsite

It is unlawful in Massachusetts to require or administer a lie detector test as a condition of employment or continued employment. An employer who violates this law shall be subject to criminal penalties and civil liability.

Commitment to Non-Discrimination

All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to disability, status as a protected veteran or any other status protected by applicable federal, state, local or international law.

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