Space Systems Engineer – Acquisition & Integration (Intermediate)

Overview

Stellar Solutions, a nationally recognized Great Place To Work®, delivers engineering solutions across commercial space and national security missions—from innovative new entrants to established government and aerospace organizations.

We bring talented, energetic, and immediately productive professionals to meet critical customer needs in systems engineering and integration, mission operations, program management, acquisition support, and strategic planning—helping our customers deliver resilient mission capability with speed, quality, and technical excellence.

Stellar Solutions is seeking a Space Systems Engineer – Acquisition & Integration to support a proposed national security space program. This position provides systems engineering, technical advisory, and acquisition support to government program offices responsible for delivering next-generation Space-Based Sensing and Targeting (SBST) capabilities.

Role/Responsibilities/Qualifications

The successful candidate will work closely with government customers, systems engineers, acquisition professionals, development contractors, FFRDCs, and mission stakeholders to support technical planning, systems integration, architecture assessments, program execution, and the transition of capabilities from development into operations. Depending on customer priorities, the role may support space, ground, mission processing, data transport, cloud/edge computing, and operational mission environments.

The ideal candidate has a solid foundation in systems engineering and national security space programs and is eager to grow into a broader technical advisory role supporting complex acquisition efforts.

Key Responsibilities

• Provide systems engineering and program office advisory support for Space-Based Sensing and Targeting (SBST), Environmental Monitoring, AMTI, GMTI, mission-data transport, ground processing, and related space-based sensing capabilities.
• Support government program offices in integrating technical planning, acquisition strategy, requirements development, architecture assessments, development oversight, test planning, and transition-to-operations activities.
• Coordinate program execution across government teams, prime contractors, developers, FFRDCs, and mission stakeholders by identifying dependencies, technical risks, decision points, and actions needed to maintain program execution.
• Support development and review of system requirements, technical specifications, architecture products, interface documentation, security constraints, risk registers, Plans of Action & Milestones (POA&Ms), and acquisition decision materials.
• Assess system interfaces, software and hardware changes, ground-system integration, mission-data flows, and operational workflows while providing technical recommendations to government stakeholders.
• Evaluate operational suitability and sustainment readiness as capabilities transition from development and test into operational environments.
• Support technical reviews, engineering reviews, readiness assessments, acquisition milestones, and contractor performance discussions through technical analysis and recommendations.
• Develop technical reports, executive briefings, spreadsheets, risk assessments, technical analyses, and decision-support products for government leadership and program stakeholders.
• Collaborate across systems engineering, mission integration, acquisition support, digital engineering, mission assurance, and mission-performance teams to support successful program execution.
• Support additional systems engineering and technical advisory activities as assigned.

Required Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in Engineering, Physics, Computer Science, Mathematics, or another relevant STEM discipline.
• 6–10 years of relevant experience supporting space systems engineering, systems integration, acquisition support, program management, mission assurance, or related national security space programs.
• Experience supporting Department of Defense, United States Space Force, Intelligence Community, NRO, SSC, SDA, MDA, or similar government organizations.
• Experience supporting government program offices, systems engineering organizations, development contractors, or FFRDCs in a technical advisory, SETA, government, or prime contractor environment.
• Experience supporting one or more of the following:
  • Systems engineering
  • Technical program management
  • Requirements development
  • System integration
  • Architecture analysis
  • Test and evaluation
  • Acquisition support
• Ability to identify technical risks and contribute to engineering and acquisition recommendations.
• Strong written and verbal communication skills with the ability to prepare technical documentation and executive briefings.
• Ability to work effectively across multidisciplinary government and contractor teams.

Desired Qualifications

• Experience supporting national security space programs.
• Experience with space or ground systems, mission processing, satellite communications, command-and-control, ISR/GEOINT, radar/RF sensing, cloud computing, or mission-data architectures.
• Experience supporting technical reviews, engineering boards, readiness reviews, or acquisition milestone activities.
• Familiarity with acquisition documentation including Statements of Work (SOWs), Performance Work Statements (PWSs), Contract Data Requirements Lists (CDRLs), Requests for Proposal (RFPs), or contractor technical oversight.
• Familiarity with Digital Engineering or Model-Based Systems Engineering (MBSE).
• DAU coursework, DAWIA certification, or other acquisition-related professional training.

Clearance & Additional Requirements

• Active TS/SCI with Polygraph required.
• Ability to obtain and maintain customer site access.
• Ability to travel periodically to customer and temporary work locations as required.

Deliverable(s)

This is an opportunity to help shape the future of national security space. Working alongside government leaders, industry partners, and technical experts, you'll influence the engineering, acquisition, and integration decisions that bring next-generation space capabilities from concept to operational reality.