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Senior Scientist, Systems Engineer

Melbourne, Florida

Job ID 25383
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L3Harris is dedicated to recruiting and developing high-performing talent who are passionate about what they do. Our employees are unified in a shared dedication to our customers’ mission and quest for professional growth. L3Harris provides an inclusive, engaging environment designed to empower employees and promote work-life success. Fundamental to our culture is an unwavering focus on values, dedication to our communities, and commitment to excellence in everything we do.

L3Harris Technologies is the Trusted Disruptor in the defense industry. With customers’ mission-critical needs always in mind, our employees deliver end-to-end technology solutions connecting the space, air, land, sea and cyber domains in the interest of national security.

Job Title:  Senior Scientist, Systems Engineer

Job Code:  25383

Job Location: Melbourne, FL

Job Schedule: 9/80

Job Description:  

The Advanced Concept Engineer (ACE) provides the strategic technical leadership to draw on L3Harris' technical competencies to meet the business needs of L3Harris and its customers. The ACE is the technical interface between L3Harris and our customers’ engineering staffs, supporting the Business Development staff in the creation of new business opportunities. The successful ACE will engage with customer, engineering, operations, and management personnel to define and document the customer’s CONOPS and requirements, perform trade studies, engage L3Harris Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) to architect an affordable solution carrying acceptable risk, and lead resulting proposal efforts. The ACE takes into account all of the needs, resources, and constraints, including the customer mission, budget limitations, technical preferences, physics boundaries, and the political climate, in a manner that creates trust in the ACE as well as L3Harris. During program execution, the ACE is the technical advocate and voice of the customer during program reviews.  This role requires experience in systems engineering, system architecture development, competitive assessment, project engineering management and development program execution. 

The Advanced Concept Engineer should be a subject matter expert in multiple technical domains with an entrepreneurial background.  This individual will work closely with business development and senior management to respond to customer needs with technical presentations, white papers and proposals; requests for proposals, information and broad agency announcements; and provide market and subject matter expert guidance to business strategy and existing development efforts.  Demonstrated communication and interpersonal skills, coupled with the ability to work cross-functionally between a large engineering enterprise and external partners is required. 

Essential Functions: 

  • Interpretation of customers’ mission needs with a focus on identifying mission gaps and addressable market 
  • Advocates customer critical needs to internal stakeholders 
  • Builds business cases and manages discretionary resources  
  • Roadmaps organic technology, discretionary funding, external partner capabilities, and customer funded studies to build new business opportunities 
  • Performs technical and management competitive assessments to clearly communicate why and how the new business opportunities provide value to L3Harris and the customer  
  • Evaluates customer and operational needs to help define and coordinate high level system performance, physical, functional, and program interface requirements 
  • Synthesis and life cycle ownership of mission architecture 
  • Generation of the initial Concept of Operations (CONOPS) or Operational Descriptions Document (ODD)  
  • Generation of initial system architecture views; decomposing opportunity to addressable configuration items in a compressive value chain framework 
  • Leads the development of appropriate solutions to customer needs  
  • Demonstrates broad and deep technical knowledge; accesses Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) as needed  
  • Determines whether requirements can be met with existing capabilities/designs or if new design requirements must be developed 
  • Leads and coordinates various analyses to optimize total system of systems and/or system architecture   
  • Assess and provide direction for make/buy decisions and selection of strategic suppliers 
  • Establishes the technology integration or migration strategies 
  • Leads and perform trade studies required to make both tactical and strategic technical decisions for pursuit 
  • Provides technical coordination between customer, industry, and internal engineering groups to articulate technical issues 
  • Prepares and presents technical information that addresses specific subjects of interest 
  • Analyzes and develops recommendations to resolve contractual technical issues 
  • Maintains a macro view of L3Harris' existing and emerging technologies  
  • Leads and coordinates pursuit activities such as: technical baseline reviews, request for input (RFI) responses, request for proposal (RFP) responses, and white papers. 

Qualifications: 

  • Bachelor’s Degree with a minimum of 15 years of prior related experience. Graduate Degree with a minimum of 13 years of prior related experience. In lieu of a degree, minimum of 19 years of prior related experience.
  • Demonstrated experience working with EW systems, including signals analysis, hardware design approaches, industry best practices, and techniques against adversary systems. 
  • Previous experience executing DoD/government programs 
  • Proven technical business development skills 
  • Excellent written and verbal communication skills 
  • Excels in communication, adeptly translating complex technical concepts for diverse audiences, including non-technical stakeholders and cross-functional teams 
  • Experience with functional and physical architecture development 
  • Experience collaborating in a team environment 
  • Ability to work autonomously and with others to resolve technical issues 
  • Must have ability to obtain and maintain US Government Secret Security Clearance.

Preferred Additional Skills:

  • Current US Government Top Secret//SCI Security Clearance 
  • Deep expertise in RF Engineering including Ideation, analysis of alternatives, and link budgets 
  • Knowledge of the requirements and challenges associated with developing counter communications solutions for man-pack systems. 
  • Experience with AI tools and frameworks for developing intelligent systems and automating processes 
  • Offensive and defensive Cyber mission experience with the ability to identify core mission gaps and influence customer solution space 
  • Demonstrated entrepreneurial success 
  • Demonstrated quick reaction technical team leadership experience 
  • Previous experience with SOCOM 
  • Broad experience working with and for Department of Defense (DoD), Intelligence Community (IC) — both domestic and international 

L3Harris Technologies is proud to be an Equal Opportunity Employer. L3Harris is committed to treating all employees and applicants for employment with respect and dignity and maintaining a workplace that is free from unlawful discrimination. All applicants will be considered for employment without regard to race, color, religion, age, national origin, ancestry, ethnicity, gender (including pregnancy, childbirth, breastfeeding or other related medical conditions), gender identity, gender expression, sexual orientation, marital status, veteran status, disability, genetic information, citizenship status, characteristic or membership in any other group protected by federal, state or local laws. L3Harris maintains a drug-free workplace and performs pre-employment substance abuse testing and background checks, where permitted by law.

Please be aware many of our positions require the ability to obtain a security clearance. Security clearances may only be granted to U.S. citizens. In addition, applicants who accept a conditional offer of employment may be subject to government security investigation(s) and must meet eligibility requirements for access to classified information.

By submitting your resume for this position, you understand and agree that L3Harris Technologies may share your resume, as well as any other related personal information or documentation you provide, with its subsidiaries and affiliated companies for the purpose of considering you for other available positions.

L3Harris Technologies is an E-Verify Employer. Please click here for the E-Verify Poster in English or Spanish. For information regarding your Right To Work, please click here for English or Spanish.

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