Ground Systems Engineer
SAIC · Denver, CO
$160,001–$200,000from the description
Jun 30, 2026
Denver, CO
Jul 21, 2026
What this job asks for AI summary
A senior ground systems engineering role supporting integration of a large satellite constellation program focused on missile warning, tracking, and defense. Day-to-day work involves liaising with ground segment contractors, monitoring interface development and software deployment, managing technical risks, and supporting verification and readiness reviews. The role suits a deeply experienced engineer with a background in classified satellite ground systems, cloud-based infrastructure, and DevSecOps practices.
Senior level · 12+ years · Washington-Arlington-Alexandria, DC-VA-MD-WV · Bachelor's required · TS/SCI clearance · Full-time
“or” means any one of them counts — you don't need all of them.
Posted 2 times — it's one opening, so apply once.
We read this from the posting text with AI. Skim the description below before ruling yourself out.
How this req sits in the market our data
Rare in this occupation — lead with these, and say what you built with them.
Most people in this occupation already list these. Still required — just not what gets you shortlisted.
What the occupation pays Median $129,834 (middle half $101,882–$164,857). This posting is about at that midpoint.
Estimated from BLS employment for this occupation and area, per-skill prevalence across our listing corpus, and published wage benchmarks — as of Jul 28, 2026. It is a model, not a headcount.
Why we read it this way (6)
The role is titled 'Ground Systems Engineer' with no explicit seniority level in the title; however, the requirements gate on 14 years of experience with a Bachelor's or 12 years with a Master's, firmly placing this at the Senior band.
The degree requirement is a hard gate: Bachelor's in engineering or IT with 14 years, OR Master's with 12 years. Because a Bachelor's is the minimum path, the degree requirement is set to Bachelors; the overall years minimum reflects the lower bound of 12 years (Master's path).
AWS is specifically called out as Amazon Commercial Cloud Services (C2S) / Secret Commercial Cloud Services (SC2S) — a classified cloud environment. Alternatives listed are other major cloud providers that offer comparable classified/government cloud offerings.
SoapUI and Parasoft appear together in the same list of testing tools; they are listed as alternatives to each other under the SoapUI skill entry since the JD presents them as a set of interchangeable options. SSH is a protocol rather than a standalone tool and was omitted as a named skill.
The SOC classification is Medium confidence: the role is primarily systems engineering and integration (15-1211 Computer Systems Analysts) for a satellite ground segment, but has meaningful overlap with IT operations/infrastructure (15-1244) given the cloud, networking, and DevSecOps emphasis.
Requires a TS/SCI clearance — the cleared population is a small fraction of this occupation, so the real candidate pool is materially smaller than the estimate below, which does not model clearance.
Read the full posting
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