Lead SATCOM MS&A 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 (FFRDCs), 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, which is part of the MITRE Technology and Engineering Infrastructure, Networking, and Communications Division, has as its mission to provide premier communications network engineering services for our customers at all classification levels.

Our engineers have expertise in research, design, analysis, modeling and simulation, lab experimentation, field testing, and implementation of networks across a diverse set of networked communication environments including virtual, wired, and wireless. We are adept at combining networking research and innovation with practical hands-on experience to provide risk reduction and deployable solutions for our customers.

Roles & Responsibilities :

MITRE is seeking a strong candidate in satellite communications (SATCOM) to contribute toward a set of programs that are focused on advancing the understanding and utilization of commercial and military SATCOM in complex environments. This position will provide opportunities for professional growth through development, applied research, and innovation of SATCOM capabilities.

Specific duties will vary by project but will generally include a combination of research, design, analysis, testing, experimentation, modeling & simulation (M&S), and emulation of communications networks to solve our nation’s most complex problems. Those activities will include one or more of following:

Support building & maintaining lab-based testbeds and conducting proof-of-concept experiments

Development of M&S capabilities to assess performance of SATCOM systems in complex environments

Conduct hardware and software experimentation to validate models or techniques

Model performance and behavior of networks and user links in tactical environments

Research emerging technologies

Assist MITRE staff in analyzing, modernizing, and advancing sponsor work programs

Basic Qualifications:

Requires a minimum of 8 years of related experience with a Bachelor’s degree; or 6 years and a Master’s degree; or a PhD with 3 years’ experience; or equivalent combination of related education and work experience.

Thorough knowledge of RF communications theory, including modulations, link budgets, error correction coding, channel effects, communication protocols, etc.

An understanding of satellite systems operations, including orbital dynamics and typical payload processing.

Some understanding or experience with military and commercial satellite systems

Ability to effectively collaborate within a team environment to execute analysis and technical development tasks for SATCOM projects, mentoring junior staff to build team competency and productivity.

Ability to interact with sponsors,…