Lead Systems Engineer Western Range

Job ID: 2618374
Location: Santa Maria, CA, US
Date Posted: 2026-10-23
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 Senior 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, California.
The Western Range (WR) Lead Systems Engineer will provide technical leadership across complex, cross-functional initiatives, driving systems architecture, integration, scalability, and operational excellence. This role partners closely with program management, product, and engineering teams to define system requirements, lead design reviews, ensure compliance with enterprise standards, and oversee delivery of high-quality system solutions.
Job Responsibilities:
Lead end to end systems engineering efforts across multiple projects or products
Define system architecture, interfaces, and integration strategy
Translate functional requirements into detailed technical specifications
Drive system design reviews, risk assessments, and trade studies
Oversee system validation, verification, and performance analysis
Partner with project managers to ensure alignment of technical scope, schedule, and resources
Mentor junior engineers and promote engineering best practices
Coordinate across cross functional teams to resolve issues and ensure seamless system integration
Support roadmap planning, capacity forecasting, and technology strategy
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.
Has experience working on projects updating ground-based systems such as RF Systems, communication systems, telemetry, and/or virtualization of systems.
Qualifications
? Bachelor's degree in an engineering, mathematics, physics or equivalent technical discipline and fourteen (14) 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 twelve (12) years of systems integration and systems engineering related or equivalent experience

• 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.
• Must have a secret clearance

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.
• Experience in cloud, distributed systems, embedded systems, or enterprise-scale platforms

Target salary range: $180,001 - $220,000. 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 .