Systems Engineer Sr Principal Chief Systems Engineer - Sign On Bonus at BAE Systems
Westminster, CO
$132,962–$226,035from the description
Aug 17, 2026
Westminster, CO
Sep 25, 2026
What this job asks for AI summary
A senior-level systems engineering leadership role at BAE Systems Space & Mission Systems, responsible for owning the technical requirements baseline for a space program and guiding multi-disciplinary teams through the full lifecycle — from architecture and design through integration, verification, and validation. The role involves coordinating with customers, program management, and suppliers on space, ground, and launch systems, and requires active use of MBSE tools and formal review processes (SRR, PDR, CDR). Suited to an experienced systems engineer with a background in space-based development programs.
Senior level · 8+ years · Boulder, CO · Bachelor's required · TS/SCI 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.
Posted 3 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.
What the occupation pays Median $150,836 (middle half $111,458–$177,121). 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 Aug 18, 2026. It is a model, not a headcount.
Why we read it this way (9)
The job title in the posting footer reads 'Systems Engineer Sr Principal Chief Systems Engineer', suggesting this is internally leveled as a Sr. Principal (top of the IC ladder); the level advertised in the title is set to Principal accordingly, while the actual scope and 8-year minimum requirement support a Senior classification.
Location is not explicitly stated in the posting body. BAE Systems SMS is headquartered in Boulder/Westminster, CO; the CBSA has been inferred as Boulder, CO — verify the exact campus before publishing.
The clearance requirement is an active Top Secret with the ability to obtain TS/SCI Polygraph; this is treated as a TS/SCI hard gate.
DOORS, Jama, and Cameo Requirements Modeler are listed as interchangeable examples of requirements database tools under the required qualifications section.
DoDAF, UAF, and UPDM are listed together as interchangeable framework alternatives under required qualifications.
Preferred qualifications call for 15+ years of experience and specific space-program leadership background; the hard minimum is 8 years.
A $10,000 sign-on bonus is advertised for external hires — this cannot be represented in the compensation fields and is noted here.
Ignored 2 non-technology phrase(s) as skills (responsibilities/concepts, not named tools): Cameo Enterprise Architecture, mission operations.
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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