MDA Division Chief Engineer

MITRE Missile Defense Agency (MDA) And Golden Dome For America (GDA) Division Chief 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.

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The Missile Defense Agency (MDA) and Golden Dome for America (GDA) division within MITRE's National Security Sector partners with senior leadership to address the nation's most complex missile defense modernization challenges. The division provides objective, system-level technical solutions across command-and-control and fire control, sensors, resilient digital infrastructure and cyber assurance, modeling and simulation, architecture design, open systems modularity and interoperability, and novel acquisition and sustainment.

Job Description:

The MDA and GDA Integration Division Chief Engineer serves as the senior technical leader for the division and is accountable for technical excellence, and mission impact across the portfolio. As a member of the division leadership team, the Chief Engineer provides technical leadership by shaping technical quality and execution, stewarding technical capabilities and laboratories, and guiding technical workforce development. The role requires exceptional technical credibility, the ability to influence across organizational boundaries, and a demonstrated record of leading large, multidisciplinary technical organizations.

The Chief Engineer works closely with Division and Center leadership, Chief Engineers across MITRE, MITRE Technology and Engineering (MTE), sponsors, and external mission partners to align and leverage corporate capabilities with evolving national security priorities.

Roles & Responsibilities:

Technical Quality & Execution

• Lead technical quality and peer review across the division to include appropriate scoping to deliver technical products within schedule and budget.
• Establish processes for planning, executing, and monitoring the work, defined in the Division's Technical Quality Plan (TQP) and ensure compliance and usage with corporate, sector, and center processes to include Mission Value Chain (MVC).
• Lead the peer review of key technical products.

Chief Engineering Council

• Lead the division chief engineer council with the department chief engineers and other senior technical staff.
• Represent the division to center/sector councils and participate in as-requested corporate councils, boards, and other special assignments aligning to CE responsibilities.

Laboratory and Capability Stewardship

• Steward the development of laboratory facilities, software tools, and other resources critical to execute the work program.
• Lead the stewardship and development of the Integrated Air and Missile Defense corporate capability through the alignment of MDA division specific capability areas and related work programs across the Army, Department of the Air Force, OUSW, Intelligence Community, and civil partners such as the FAA.
• Develop and execute the division's IR&D strategy.

Talent & Organizational Development

• Provide direct mentorship of senior technical leaders.
• Assess organizational capabilities and inform workforce planning, hiring, and development decisions.
• Foster a collaborative and innovative technical culture.

Sponsor Engagement & External Leadership

• Serve as a trusted technical advisor to senior MDA leaders.
• Represent MITRE in executive forums, technical communities, and strategic sponsor engagements.

Basic Qualifications:

• 15+ years of progressively responsible technical leadership experience with a bachelor's degree; or 12 years and a master's degree; or a PhD with 10 years' experience; or equivalent combination of related education and work experience.
• Demonstrated success leading large, multidisciplinary engineering or scientific organizations delivering mission impact.
• Recognized technical leader with deep expertise in systems engineering and one or more defense mission domains.
• Experience integrating capabilities across multiple organizations and complex stakeholder environments.
• Established reputation as a thought leader within the national security community.
• Demonstrated ability to engage with and serve as a trusted advisor to government sponsors.
• Experience shaping organizational strategy, technical investment, and high-value work programs.
• Exceptional…