Systems Engineer (Satellite Ground Systems)

Location: Aurora, Colorado, United States, or Sterling, Virginia, United States

Salary: $130,000–$200,000 USD annually

Company

hirify.global delivers mission and technical expertise for national security, technology, and defense challenges.

What you will do

• Translate mission needs, operational concepts, and customer requirements into use cases, interface control documents, sequence diagrams, data schemas, and functional requirements.
• Develop and maintain structural and behavioral architecture models using MBSE and SysML methodologies.
• Work within an agile scrum team to refine backlogs, define system behavior and acceptance criteria, and maintain alignment between software features and mission objectives.
• Define and review REST, HTTP, JSON/Protobuf, and publish/subscribe interfaces for ground-to-space and ground-to-ground communications.
• Create verification matrices, test plans, and procedures, and support automated testing, integration, functional checkout, and requirements sell-off.
• Participate in technical exchange meetings, working groups, interface control boards, milestone reviews, demonstrations, and customer briefings.

Requirements

• Active or current Top Secret clearance with SCI access and polygraph is required.
• Bachelor’s degree in a STEM field with 5+ years of relevant engineering experience, or a master’s degree with 3+ years of experience.
• Experience with satellite ground systems, command and control, and mission management systems.
• Experience with MBSE, SysML tools, and structural and behavioral modeling.
• Ability to author software-facing technical specifications, including sequence diagrams, message schemas, data flows, and interface control documents.
• Experience with agile software development and Atlassian tools, including Jira and Confluence, plus requirements verification and integration testing.

Nice to have

• Experience with cloud-native and microservice architectures, Docker, and Kubernetes.
• Experience with automated test and integration frameworks such as Playwright, PyTest, or API test runners.
• Familiarity with mission-thread execution and end-to-end ground data flow verification.
• Experience collaborating across geographically dispersed, cross-functional teams.

Culture & Benefits

• Medical, dental, and vision coverage.
• Health Savings Account with company contribution.
• Paid time off, paid holidays, and paid parental leave.
• 401(k) with company match.
• Training and development opportunities, award programs, and company-sponsored events.
• Focus on work-life balance and employee growth.