Principal Systems Engineer
BAE Systems · Colorado Springs, CO
$107,359–$182,510from the description
Jul 20, 2026
Colorado Springs, CO
Jul 21, 2026
What this job asks for AI summary
A systems engineering role embedded within a radar, site activation, or compute Integrated Product Team (IPT) on a defense program. Day-to-day work centers on managing and tracing requirements from customer inputs through design, supporting functional analysis and trade studies, and preparing documentation for formal program reviews across the full engineering lifecycle. Suits an experienced systems engineer holding an active Top Secret clearance.
Senior level · 6+ years · Colorado Springs, CO · Bachelor's required · Top Secret clearance · Full-time
Advertised as Principal, but the requirements read as Senior.
“or” means any one of them counts — you don't need all of them.
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.
What the occupation pays Median $112,511 (middle half $80,144–$140,023). 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 (8)
The posting covers two levels simultaneously — Principal (6 years with BS, 3 with MS, 1 with PhD) and Sr. Principal (8 years with BS, 6 with MS, 4 with PhD). The minimum experience gate of 6 years (with a Bachelor's) is used for the overall years minimum; the salary range ($107,359–$182,510) spans both levels.
The title advertises 'Principal' and 'Sr. Principal,' which map to the Principal advertised seniority band; however, the actual scope (IPT contributor, component-level systems engineering) is consistent with a Senior individual contributor, so seniority is set to Senior.
The clearance requirement is an active Top Secret (not TS/SCI); the posting does not mention SCI or a polygraph.
Degree requirement is set to Bachelor's in STEM — the JD offers degree-plus-years combinations but does not accept equivalent experience without a degree.
Jira and Confluence are listed together as 'Atlassian tools (Jira, Confluence, etc.)' under required skills; they are emitted as separate skills with each listed as an alternative for the other to reflect that the requirement is for Atlassian tooling broadly.
Cameo (MBSE) and PLM tools (Windchill/Teamcenter) appear under 'Preferred Education, Experience, & Skills' and are marked accordingly. Siemens is listed alongside Windchill/Teamcenter as a PLM vendor reference, not a distinct tool, so it is not emitted separately.
Requirements decomposition, requirements management, cross-functional IPT experience, and Systems Engineering lifecycle experience are domain/methodology competencies rather than named tools and are not emitted as skills per extraction rules.
Requires a Top Secret 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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