Senior Communications Engineer

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.

The MITRE Corporation’s Communications Systems Engineering Department (L617) focuses on creating and fielding adaptive communications and networking infrastructure to successfully execute different mission areas. Our work involves modernizing currently fielded communications systems while developing/fielding the next generation communications capabilities used by the United States military and international partners across all domains from maritime to air and to space. Our primary areas of concentration include RF communications, networking, modeling and simulation, systems integration, systems engineering, and software development.

The successful candidate will provide technical leadership to government and original equipment manufacturer (OEM) stakeholders, guide architecture and implementation approaches, and help shape strategic plans and technology roadmaps for resilient network capabilities across classification domains.

Roles and Responsibilities:

• You will serve as a thought leader in advanced tactical data link messaging and cross platform messaging concepts engaging with sponsors and within MITRE to analyze operational requirements, address communications challenges, and apply sound technology solutions to benefit sponsor mission outcomes.
• You will be supporting the Department of the Air Force Portfolio Acquisition Executive’s Office for Command, Control, Communications and Battle Management (DAF PEO C3BM) providing technical guidance for the architecture of the Department of the Air Force Battle Network (DBN) - one of the AF’s highest modernization priorities.
• You will apply systems engineering techniques to shape the architectural design of the Department of the Air Force (DAF) Battle Network (DBN) to enable joint all domain command and control (JADC2) interoperability across disparate platforms/sensors, multiple message domains, and operating environments.
• You will lead and actively collaborate across MITRE and DoW sponsor Working Groups and stakeholders with a diverse team to participate in technical exchange engagements to share knowledge and research and elicit feedback from a diverse set of subject matter experts.
• You will Serve as a subject matter expert on government and industry best practices to create timely and actionable recommendations and create optimal interoperability solutions.

Basic Qualifications:

• You have familiarity with systems engineering across the development lifecycle from concept inception through requirements definition, system development, integration, and verification.
• You are familiar with DoW messaging standards such as Link 16, protocols, gateways, message forwarding, and battle management command and control (BMC2) tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs).
• You have strong interpersonal skills to effectively collaborate across multiple organizations and engineering disciplines.
• Typically requires a minimum of 6 years of related experience with a Bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering, Physics, Computer Engineering, Mathematics, or similar field; or 4 years and a master’s degree; or a PhD with 1 year experience.
• You must have the ability to document results through technical and non-technical briefings, memos, and formal reports using Microsoft Office products.
• You must have the ability to communicate complex concepts to different audiences; from high-level descriptions to detailed explanations is also required.
• Must have an active Secret U.S Government issued Security Clearance with the ability to obtain and maintain a Top Secret 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:

• You possess an in-depth understanding of Joint communications concepts and technologies, as well as familiarity with:
  • One or more DoW messaging standards such as Link 16, VMF, UCI, MADL, IFDL, CMF, etc.
  • One of more DoW open Standards such as OMS, etc.
  • You are familiar with relevant commercial message standards and its application to DoW systems /standards such as ITU-T Rec.X.667, IETF RFCs, NIEM ISO/IEC 10646, IEEE 754, ANSI, etc.
• You are familiar with tactical data networking and data forwarding, network routing and transport protocols, distributed computing.
• You are familiar with the communications protocols of air, maritime, and space-based C2ISR systems and long-range kinetic fires.
• MS or PhD in Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, Computer Science, Physics, Mathematics, or a similar field with 8+ years of related experience
• You have software development experience with one or more software development tools/environments (MATLAB, Java, JavaScript, Scala, Git, XML, JSON, or XSLT)
• Familiar with reading the outputs of MBSE products from CAMEO Enterprise Architect.

• Ability to travel in support of/on behalf of sponsor approximately 2-4 times annually.
• Possess an active Top-Secret clearance.

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

Secret

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:

$126,800 - $158,500 - $190,200 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.

MITRE intends to maintain a website that is fully accessible to all individuals. If you are unable to search or apply for jobs and would like to request a reasonable accommodation for any part of MITRE’s employment process, please email [email protected] for general support and [email protected] for intern positions. This service is for individuals requiring reasonable accommodation requests. Please note that vendor solicitations will not receive a reply.

Benefits information may be found here.

Copyright © 1997-2026, The MITRE Corporation. All rights reserved. MITRE is a registered trademark of The MITRE Corporation. Material on this site may be copied and distributed with permission only.