Lead Spectrum Policy & Harmonization Engineer

At MITRE, your passion fuels work that impacts our nation and improves lives. This is where your skills strengthen national security, cybersecurity, health, transportation, and citizen services. We’re a nonprofit engineering, applied research, and advanced technology organization working in the public interest. With objectivity and integrity at our core, we lead federally funded research and development centers for U.S. government agencies – collaborating with industry and academia to deliver integrated, high-impact solutions that advance our nation’s health, security, and prosperity.

Our people tackle the toughest technical challenges, supported by competitive benefits, meaningful career development, and a culture of innovation, collaboration, and technical excellence. Choose MITRE for a career with purpose — and help shape the future.

As an operator of Federally Funded Research and Development Centers, MITRE staff are tasked with applying their skills to impact programmatic and technical decisions of highest importance to the nation. The Advanced Wireless & SATCOM Department, part of MITRE’s Technology and Engineering Infrastructure, Networking, and Communications Division, provides premier communications engineering, wireless networking, SATCOM, spectrum, and technical analysis expertise for our customers at all classification levels.

We seek to expand our department with a technical leader capable of leading wireless communications engineering and standards-related analysis in support of national security missions. The successful candidate will bring deep technical expertise in wireless communications systems, spectrum-dependent systems, and emerging network technologies, along with the judgment and composure needed to represent technical positions in high-visibility, consensus-driven international standards environments.

This position is focused on research, design, analysis, evaluation, technical leadership, and sponsor decision support. It does not involve administering, operating, troubleshooting, or maintaining a production communications network.

Roles & Responsibilities :

Specific duties will vary by project but will generally include leading and performing wireless communications engineering, spectrum analysis, standards support, and technical assessment activities. Responsibilities may include:

Lead technical analysis and sponsor support for international spectrum harmonization and regulatory activities, including preparation for and participation in ITU-R study groups, working parties, WRC/CPM preparatory work, and domestic forums (NTIA/IRAC, FCC, FAA).Develop, review, and defend technically rigorous contributions, comments, and national/sponsor positions, and analyze contributions submitted by other administrations and stakeholders.

Plan and execute compatibility, coexistence, interference, propagation, link-budget, and aggregate-interference studies as contributions to harmonization and regulatory activities.

Model potential interference from external systems into incumbent spectrum-dependent systems, quantifying operational impact and identifying recommended protection criteria and mitigation options.

Build and validate study models using tools such as MATLAB, Visualyse, SEAMCAT, Atoll, iQ-link, and HTZ, and document assumptions for transparency and reproducibility.

Navigate complex, consensus-driven multi-stakeholder settings where technical, regulatory, economic, and national interests may be in tension, while maintaining an evidence-based engineering position.

Produce concise leadership-level summaries, technical recommendations, and decision-quality briefings for government sponsors and senior stakeholders.

Basic Qualifications:

Typically requires a minimum of 8 years of…