Manager of Systems Design- DRT

Thales Defense & Security, Inc. (TDSI) is a U.S. company headquartered in Clarksburg, MD, serving domestic and international defense air, land, and sea domains for over 60 years. With more than 1,000 employees, TDSI and its four subsidiaries support U.S. Joint Services, special operations forces, and multi‑national partners with a variety of communication, visualization, signal intelligence, electronic warfare, and sensor/sonar capabilities.

• Competitive salary
• Yearly incentive compensation plan
• Medical insurance for self and eligible family members
• Generous 401(k) program – up to 7% company contribution and 100% immediate vesting
• Tuition reimbursement
• Paid wellness, vacation, and holiday leave
• Paid maternity, paternity, and parental leave
• 9/80 work schedule (every other Friday off)
• Hybrid working environment

We are seeking a Systems Engineering Manager located in our Germantown, MD campus focused on our Digital Receiver Technologies (DRT) line of electronic warfare/SIGINT software‑defined radio technologies. This role provides technical and organizational leadership for the DRT Systems Engineering department. The ideal candidate possesses strong technical understanding and systems design of hardware and software for SIGINT/EW equipment, coupled with experience in organizational development of people and processes.

• Provide technical and managerial leadership for the DRT Systems Engineering department.
• Interface proactively with engineering project leads, program management leads, and engineering management to resolve issues, coordinate staffing resources, equipment, and facilities, and manage department activities.
• Work with department staff to develop and achieve strategic business plan objectives.
• Serve as subject matter expert on DRT systems and products.
• Provide expertise on hardware and software systems (both integrated and modular designs) of high complexity and high density, including RF transceivers, filters, microprocessors, DSPs, memory systems, FPGAs, user interfaces, antennas, and power supplies capable of supporting advanced algorithms for state‑of‑the‑art SIGINT and EW products.
• Support product development teams with use‑case analysis, requirements capture and allocation, trade studies, architectural design, development and analysis, system implementation, unit level testing, automated testing, integration, verification, validation, and transition to manufacturing.
• Assist business development with technical support for business capture, including customer meetings, RFI responses, white paper generation, requirements elicitation, and proposal support.
• Develop technical proposals and support cost estimations.
• Evaluate competing products and solution offerings.
• Represent Thales/DRT at relevant industry forums.
• Develop, maintain, and enforce Thales/DRT development processes and tools.
• Support design reviews and other technical interchanges.
• Support integration, installation, testing, evaluation, and troubleshooting of equipment during development and customer lab and field trials.
• Support government certification testing of equipment.

This position carries out supervisory responsibilities in accordance with the organization's operating policies and applicable laws, including interviewing, hiring, training, and developing employees; creating effective staff plans – assigning and directing work in a matrix organization; conducting performance appraisals, rewarding, and managing employee discipline when required; and addressing complaints and resolving conflicts. Active mentoring and development of staff are critical to building a highly performing cohesive team.

• U.S. citizenship required. Applicants may be subject to a government security investigation and must meet eligibility requirements for access to classified information.
• BSCE, BSCS, BSEE, BSME, BSSE or equivalent.
• 8+ years as a design/systems engineer with technical leadership experience.
• Strong presentation and writing skills; fluent in English.
• Experience with system‑level design, development, and testing of tactical, secure, state‑of‑the‑art military SIGINT/EW or…