Senior Systems Engineer

The role

The Senior Systems Engineer will support the development and maturation of advanced defense products. This hands-on role involves translating customer needs into system requirements, interfaces, and technical baselines while providing technical mentorship.

What you will do

• Develop, capture, decompose, allocate, and maintain system-level requirements.
• Work with mechanical, electrical, firmware, test, manufacturing, and program personnel.
• Develop and maintain requirements traceability, verification matrices, and interface control documentation.
• Support system architecture development, trade studies, and technical risk assessment.
• Identify requirement gaps, conflicts, and technical risks.
• Coordinate with test and verification personnel to define methods and acceptance criteria.
• Support design reviews, test readiness reviews, and production readiness reviews.
• Support development of compliance matrices and customer-facing technical documentation.
• Provide technical mentorship to less-experienced systems engineering personnel.
• Support the implementation and maturation of Jama Connect as a requirements management platform.

Required qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in Systems Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Aerospace Engineering, Computer Engineering, or another relevant technical discipline.
• 5+ years of relevant engineering experience, including hands-on experience performing systems engineering activities on complex products or systems.
• Demonstrated experience developing, decomposing, allocating, and managing technical requirements.
• Working knowledge of requirements traceability, interface management, verification planning, technical baselines, and engineering review processes.
• Experience working across multiple engineering disciplines, including mechanical, electrical, firmware/software, test, manufacturing, and program functions.
• Experience applying systems engineering practices in a defense, aerospace, high-reliability, safety-critical, or similarly structured engineering environment.
• Ability to translate ambiguous customer, operational, or technical needs into clear engineering requirements and actionable technical work.
• Strong technical communication skills.
• Ability to independently execute systems engineering work while coordinating across a multidisciplinary team.
• Ability to operate effectively in a fast-paced development environment with evolving priorities.
• Strong organizational skills and attention to technical detail.

Nice to have

• Direct experience supporting defense programs, military systems, unmanned systems, autonomous systems, weapons systems, safe-and-arm systems, or other mission-critical products.
• Experience with MIL-STDs, military qualification processes, safety-critical system development, environmental qualification, or compliance-driven engineering.
• Hands-on experience using Jama Connect for requirements management.
• Experience implementing, configuring, administering, or significantly expanding Jama Connect within an engineering organization.
• Experience with other formal requirements management platforms such as IBM DOORS, DOORS Next, Polarion, or similar systems.
• Experience establishing requirements hierarchies, traceability models, verification relationships, baselines, review workflows, and reusable templates within a requirements management platform.
• Experience developing interface control documents, verification plans, compliance matrices, system architecture documentation, and customer-facing technical packages.
• Experience supporting test planning, system integration, qualification testing, failure analysis, production transition, or technical customer reviews.
• Experience mentoring junior engineers or helping develop systems engineering capability within a team.
• Experience working in a small or rapidly growing engineering organization.

Benefits

• Generous PTO policy
• Comprehensive medical coverage (80% company-paid for employee + dependents)
• Vision & dental (100% company-paid)
• Short and long-term disability coverage (100% company-paid)
• Generous 401(k) retirement plan
• Company-paid life insurance
• Great teammates and well stocked snacks

About the company

Kraken Kinetics designs and manufactures advanced kinetic solutions for the United States Armed Forces and its allies. They specialize in mission-tailored warheads and firing systems for unmanned and autonomous weapon platforms.