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Salary: USD 198,000 - 320,000 / annual
CHAOS Industries is seeking a Principal Systems Engineer to lead technical ownership of an autonomous Massed Modular Aircraft development program. This is a full-lifecycle role spanning concept definition, requirements development, design, integration, verification/validation, qualification, production transition, and in-service support.
You will serve as the senior technical authority for systems engineering across all program phases. Key responsibilities include owning the system architecture and requirements baseline for a modular aircraft platform, ensuring configurability and commonality across variants while maintaining system-level integrity. You will drive technical decision-making at major program reviews (SRR, SFR, PDR, CDR, TRR, qualification reviews) and own associated review packages and exit criteria.
A core focus is establishing and governing the program's Model-Based Systems Engineering (MBSE) environment using SysML, ensuring the system model serves as the authoritative source of truth for requirements, architecture, interfaces, and behavior. You will define and enforce modeling standards, viewpoints, and model governance practices across a multi-disciplinary engineering team. You will lead requirements decomposition and allocation from system-level down to subsystem and component levels, maintaining full bidirectional traceability.
Additional responsibilities include driving integration of the SysML model with digital engineering tools across the toolchain (requirements management, simulation, verification tracking, configuration management) to support a true digital thread/digital twin environment. You will define and maintain the modular system architecture, including interface control documents (ICDs) governing structural, electrical, data, and software interfaces between core airframe and mission/payload modules. You will lead trade studies evaluating commonality versus mission-specific optimization across module variants.
You will define the system-level verification and validation (V&V) strategy, ensuring full traceability from requirements through test/analysis/demonstration/inspection methods to verification closure. You will lead integration of model-based verification artifacts (simulation-based verification, model execution/analysis) alongside traditional test-based verification. You will support qualification planning and execution, ensuring the system design and supporting model artifacts meet contractual and regulatory certification/qualification requirements.
You will partner closely with Configuration Management, Data Management, Program Scheduling, and Contracts functions to ensure systems engineering artifacts align with program baselines and contractual deliverables. You will represent systems engineering in customer technical interchange meetings, program reviews, and audits. You will also support proposal efforts with systems engineering approach development, technical staffing plans, and MBSE implementation roadmaps for new business pursuits.
CHAOS Industries was founded in 2022 and has raised $1 billion in funding from leading investors including 8VC, Accel, and Valor Equity Partners. The company is headquartered in Los Angeles with offices in Washington D.C., San Francisco, San Diego, and London. The company develops products powered by Coherent Distributed Networks (CDN™) for warfighters, commercial air operators, and border protection teams.
**Requirements:**
- Bachelor's degree in Systems Engineering, Aerospace Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, or related discipline; advanced degree preferred
- 15+ years of systems engineering experience within the aerospace/defense industry, including demonstrated ownership of a program across multiple lifecycle phases
- Strong hands-on experience with MBSE practices and SysML modeling (e.g., Cameo Systems Modeler/MagicDraw, Rhapsody, or equivalent)
- Demonstrated experience defining and governing system architectures for complex, multi-variant, or modular platforms
- Strong understanding of systems engineering principles, including requirements management, architecture development, and verification/validation planning
- Experience leading technical reviews (SRR, PDR, CDR, TRR) and interfacing directly with government or commercial customers
- Experience with model-based verification and simulation-driven V&V approaches
**Preferred Requirements:**
- Direct experience with modular aircraft, unmanned aircraft systems (UAS), or multi-mission/multi-variant platform architectures
- Experience establishing an MBSE environment and digital thread/digital twin capability on a new program from the ground up
- Ability to obtain/maintain Secret/Top Secret/SCI clearance
