Principal Systems Engineer Principal

Job ID: 2615244

Location: Santa Maria, CA, US

Date Posted: 2026-08-04

Category: Engineering and Sciences

Subcategory: Systems Engineer

Schedule: Full-Time

Shift: Day Job

Travel: Yes - 25% of the time

Minimum Clearance Required: Secret

Clearance Level Must Be Able to Obtain: None

Potential for Remote Work: ORA_ON_SITE

Description

SAIC seeks an experienced and energetic Principal Systems Engineer to directly support the modernization of the space launch ranges, meeting mission requirements, providing range capabilities, and supporting the Assured Access to Space (AATS) mission. The overarching purpose of the program is to perform system modernization and digital transformation projects that will enable the acceleration of the space launch cadence to enable the Spaceport of the future. This position is located in Santa Maria, CA.

Job Responsibilities:

Providing system-level engineering support and expertise to a cross-functional team.
Providing preliminary solutions to engineering problems of moderate scope and complexity in an expeditious, efficient, and timely manner.
Identify and apply current and emerging Digital Engineering practices, methods, and tools to address our sponsor and partners' most pressing challenges.
Apply knowledge and principles of agile acquisition, architecture design, system integration, risk assessment/management, and other systems engineering disciplines to support recommendations to address these challenges.
Employ rapid prototyping and technical recommendations to inform sponsor and partner capability requirements and decisions.
Collaborate with platform partners to contribute to greater practice of MBSE and DE across the enterprise.
Authoring and maintenance of technical documentation, such as Requirements Specifications, Concepts of Operation, Product and Performance Specifications, Interface Control Documents, Compliance Matrices, Qualification Test Plans, Procedures, and Reports.
Development and documentation of engineering processes and standards in support of customer requirements.
Fast-paced turn around and development for proposal requests and statements of work within an Integrated Product Team environment.
Flexibility to quickly transition between multiple technical disciplines.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in engineering, mathematics, physics or equivalent technical discipline and nine (9) years of systems integration and systems engineering related or equivalent experience or Master's degree in an engineering, mathematics, physics or equivalent technical discipline and seven (7) years of systems integration and systems engineering related or equivalent experience. Experience will be considered in lieu of degree.
• Familiarity with team and administrative collaboration and analysis tools such as Microsoft SharePoint, Excel, Access, and Project.
• Familiarity with Model Based Systems Engineering (MBSE) including generating, analyzing, and maintaining a digital model.
• Experience with projects that consist of updating ground-based systems such as RF Systems, communication systems, telemetry, and/or virtualization of systems.

Desired Education, Experience, and Qualifications:

• Master of Science in engineering, science, or related technical field
• Experience in large Government systems acquisition.
• Thorough understanding of space systems design, integration and test requirements and test execution, including test equipment support.

Target salary range: $160,001 - $200,000. The estimate displayed represents the typical salary range for this position based on experience and other factors.


SAIC is a premier technology integrator providing full life cycle services and solutions in the technical, engineering, intelligence, and enterprise information technology markets. SAIC is Redefining Ingenuity through its deep customer and domain knowledge to enable the delivery of systems engineering and integration offerings for large, complex projects. SAIC's approximately 15,000 employees are driven by integrity and mission focus to serve customers in the U.S. federal government. Headquartered in Reston, Virginia, SAIC has annual revenues of approximately $4.5 billion. For more information, visit saic.com. For information on the benefits SAIC offers, see .