Sr. Staff Systems Architect - RF Sensing & Mission (Active TS clearance required)

About us:

At Viasat, the work you do helps people stay connected in ways that matter, from everyday moments to critical missions across air, land, sea, and space.

 

We’re a place for people who are curious, bold, and motivated by meaningful work. Here, you'll have the opportunity to make an impact, explore new possibilities, and grow your career in ways that align with your interests and goals. When you're ready to take on something new, you'll find leaders who support your development and help you turn your ambition into action.

What you'll do:

Join Viasat Government as a Sr. Staff Systems Architect working RF sensing programs! In this role, you will serve as the technical lead and primary systems engineering interface to the customer, guiding system architecture, requirements development, and technical execution across the program lifecycle. You will:

• Lead system architecture, design, and technical planning for advanced RF communication and sensing systems supporting national security missions.
• Serve as the primary technical interface to customer engineering teams, ensuring alignment of mission objectives, requirements, and technical solutions.
• Lead requirements development, decomposition, allocation, and traceability across hardware, software, firmware, and integration activities.
• Drive architecture trade studies, modeling and simulation efforts, and system performance analysis to inform technical decisions and program direction.
• Provide technical leadership across multidisciplinary engineering teams, ensuring successful execution from concept development through integration, test, and deployment.
• Identify technical risks early and develop mitigation strategies that maintain program cost, schedule, and performance objectives.

The day-to-day:

As the program's lead systems architect, responsibilities include:

• Translating customer mission needs into end-to-end system architectures and actionable engineering requirements.
• Leading technical discussions, reviews, and working groups with customer stakeholders and internal engineering teams.
• Developing system-level requirements, interface definitions, CONOPS, and verification strategies.
• Leading modeling, simulation, and analysis efforts to support architecture trades, performance prediction, and mission effectiveness assessments.
• Collaborating closely with software, firmware, RF, and test engineers to ensure successful implementation of system requirements.
• Supporting system integration, troubleshooting, and technical issue resolution throughout development and test activities.
• Maintaining requirements traceability and configuration control throughout the program lifecycle.
• Mentoring junior systems engineers and providing guidance during architecture reviews, design reviews, and customer briefings.

What you'll need:

• Master's degree in Electrical Engineering, Aerospace Engineering, Computer Engineering, Systems Engineering, or related technical discipline. Ph.D. preferred.
• 10+ years of experience in systems engineering, system architecture, and technical leadership for complex defense, aerospace, communications, or RF systems.
• Demonstrated experience serving as a lead systems engineer, chief engineer, or systems architect on large-scale programs.
• Strong background in requirements development, architecture definition, requirements management, and systems engineering processes.
• Experience conducting modeling, simulation, trade studies, and performance analysis to support technical decision-making.
• Experience with RF communications systems, signal processing systems, or mission-critical distributed systems.
• Proficiency with MATLAB, Python, C++, or similar modeling and analysis tools.
• Excellent verbal and written communication skills, including customer presentations, technical briefings, and engineering leadership.
• U.S. citizenship required.
• Active Top Secret clearance with SCI eligibility is required.

What will help you on the job:

• Experience serving as the primary technical interface to DoD, Intelligence Community, or other U.S. Government customers.
• Experience developing and managing system requirements using modern requirements management tools.
• Familiarity with Digital Engineering, MBSE, SysML, or model-based requirements development.
• Experience leading geographically distributed engineering teams.
• Hands-on experience with RF systems, signal processing, communications systems, and system integration activities.
• Experience supporting architecture reviews, design reviews, and transition to operational deployment.
• Active TS/SCI clearance.

#LI-VSAT 

Salary range: $180,500.00 - $285,000.00 / annually. For specific work locations within San Jose, the San Francisco Bay area and New York City metropolitan area, the base pay range for this role is $224,500.00- $336,500.00/ annually  : At Viasat, we consider many factors when it comes to compensation, including the scope of the position as well as your background and experience. Base pay may vary depending on job-related knowledge, skills, and experience. Additional cash or stock incentives may be provided as part of the compensation package, in addition to a range of medical, financial, and/or other benefits, dependent on the position offered. Learn more about Viasat’s comprehensive benefit offerings that are focused on your holistic health and wellness at https://careers.viasat.com/benefits. EEO statement:

Viasat is proud to be an equal opportunity employer, seeking to create a welcoming and diverse environment. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, gender, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, national origin, ancestry, physical or mental disability, medical condition, marital status, genetics, age, or veteran status or any other applicable legally protected status or characteristic. If you would like to request an accommodation on the basis of disability for completing this on-line application, please click

careers@viasat.com

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