Lead, Chief Systems Engineer 1 at L3Harris
Colorado Springs, CO
$110,500–$205,500from the description
Jul 14, 2026
Colorado Springs, CO
Jul 21, 2026
What this job asks for AI summary
A senior systems engineering leadership role focused on radar programs within the defense sector. The position involves overseeing the full engineering lifecycle — from requirements analysis and architecture through integration, verification, and validation — while leading multidisciplinary teams across electrical, mechanical, software, and test disciplines. Candidates with radar-related technical backgrounds and experience managing large engineering teams are the target audience.
Senior level · 9+ years · Colorado Springs, CO · 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 (10)
This is a Chief/Lead Systems Engineer role for radar programs — a domain-specific systems engineering position that doesn't map cleanly to a single SOC. 15-1299 (Computer Occupations, All Other) is used as the best fit; 15-1211 (Computer Systems Analysts) is a plausible alternative given the heavy requirements analysis and architecture work.
The title 'Lead, Chief Systems Engineer' maps to 'Principal' as the advertised seniority; however, the actual scope (leading a 50+ person team, 9+ years required, single-program focus) is consistent with a Senior-level role on the standard career ladder rather than a true org-wide Principal.
The degree requirement is marked None because the JD explicitly accepts 13 years of experience in lieu of any degree.
The minimum experience is 9 years (Bachelor's path); 7 years with a graduate degree and 13 years with no degree are also accepted paths.
The radar/signal processing/RF hardware requirement is a hard gate but stated as 'at least one of' three options — signal processing is listed as the primary with the alternatives capturing the other two.
MagicDraw and CAMEO Systems Modeler are listed together in the preferred section; however, SysML/DoDAF modeling with MagicDraw also appears in the required Essential Functions, so SysML and MagicDraw are marked as required. CAMEO is listed as an alternative to MagicDraw since they are the same tool (CAMEO is the rebranded name).
Kubernetes/OpenShift and Agile appear only under 'Preferred Additional Skills' and are marked accordingly.
A Secret clearance is explicitly required ('Secret security clearance required').
Ignored 1 non-technology phrase(s) as skills (responsibilities/concepts, not named tools): systems engineering.
Requires a 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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