Lead, Systems Engineer - Space Vehicle

L3Harris is dedicated to recruiting and developing high-performing talent who are passionate about what they do. Our employees are unified in a shared dedication to our customers’ mission and quest for professional growth. L3Harris provides an inclusive, engaging environment designed to empower employees and promote work-life success. Fundamental to our culture is an unwavering focus on values, dedication to our communities, and commitment to excellence in everything we do. L3Harris is the Trusted Disruptor in defense tech. With customers’ mission-critical needs always in mind, our employees deliver end-to-end technology solutions connecting the space, air, land, sea and cyber domains in the interest of national security. Job Title: Lead, Systems Engineer – Space Vehicle Job Code: 44454 Job Location: Palm Bay, Florida Job Schedule: 9/80 (Every Other Friday Off!) Job Description: The L3Harris Spectral Solutions division is seeking a Lead Systems Engineer to support space vehicle–level development for missile warning and missile defense missions. This role leads the technical planning, requirements development, integration, verification, and lifecycle execution of advanced space-based systems supporting national security objectives. The Lead Systems Engineer works across multidisciplinary teams to ensure that payload, bus, software, ground, and mission interfaces are defined, allocated, and managed in alignment with program goals and customer expectations. This position is responsible for guiding system architecture trades, assessing technical risk, and driving balanced solutions that meet performance, schedule, cost, and mission assurance requirements. The role supports the decomposition of mission needs into actionable system and subsystem requirements and ensures traceability throughout design, integration, and test activities. The Lead Systems Engineer also serves as a key technical interface with customers, partners, and internal stakeholders, representing system-level priorities, issues, and recommendations. In addition, this position helps coordinate verification and validation efforts, anomaly resolution, configuration management, and readiness reviews across the space vehicle lifecycle. The ideal candidate brings strong leadership, systems thinking, and technical communication skills, along with experience supporting complex aerospace or defense programs in a collaborative engineering environment. Essential Functions: •    Lead space vehicle-level systems engineering for satellite programs from concept development through design, integration, test, launch, and mission operations support. •    Own the development, decomposition, allocation, and management of spacecraft system requirements to subsystem and component levels. •    Coordinate cross-functional technical efforts among systems, payload, avionics, flight software, mechanical, thermal, power, propulsion, guidance and control, integration and test, and mission operations teams. •    Lead development and maintenance of the space vehicle architecture, technical baseline, and interface definitions to ensure system compatibility and mission success. •    Manage system-level trades, performance analyses, and design decisions affecting spacecraft capability, cost, schedule, reliability, and risk. •    Lead system integration, verification, validation, and test planning to ensure compliance with program requirements and mission objectives. •    Support major technical reviews, including SRR, PDR, CDR, TRR, FRR, and post-launch readiness activities, and present technical status to internal and external stakeholders. •    Identify, assess, and mitigate technical risks and opportunities associated with spacecraft design, manufacturing, integration, environmental test, and launch vehicle interfaces. •    Collaborate with program management, production, quality, supply chain, and subcontractor teams to ensure successful execution