Deputy Chief Engineer: Lead Mission-Critical Systems

General Atomics Intelligence; Charlottesville (VA); On-site; USD 128,000 - 229,000; Full time

Job summary

General Atomics Intelligence seeks a Deputy Chief Engineer to lead the technical direction of a large-scale, real-time software program supporting U.S. Government missions.

The role partners with the current Chief Engineer to learn the system, build trust, and progressively assume broader leadership responsibilities with an eye toward becoming Chief Engineer. This is a senior technical leadership position requiring proactive judgment, ownership of end-to-end system integrity, and the ability to

Qualifications

• Twelve or more years of experience with a bachelors degree, ten or more years with a masters degree, or seven or more years with a PhD.
• Significant experience leading software engineering for large, complex, distributed systems.
• Experience serving in a senior technical leadership role such as Chief Engineer, Deputy Chief Engineer, Chief Architect, Principal Engineer, Technical Director, or similar.
• Strong systems engineering mindset and ability to understand complex end-to-end system behavior across many interacting components.
• Experience with mission-critical operational systems where reliability, performance, and uptime matter.
• Demonstrated ability to lead across organizational boundaries and influence multiple teams.
• Proactive leadership style with a strong sense of ownership and accountability.
• Sound engineering judgment and the confidence to make bold but disciplined decisions.
• Strong communication skills, including the ability to explain complex technical issues to senior leaders, customers, and mixed technical/non-technical audiences.

Responsibilities

• Partner with the current Chief Engineer to understand the architecture, technical roadmap, dependencies, operational context, and major risks across the program.
• Help define and maintain the overall technical direction of a complex software ecosystem involving real-time data ingest, tracking, fusion, geospatial capabilities, analytics, and external integrations.
• Provide technical leadership across multiple teams, subsystems, and engineering disciplines.
• Guide major architectural decisions and evaluate tradeoffs among performance, resiliency, maintainability, scalability, delivery speed, and long-term system health.
• Take ownership of end-to-end system integrity and help ensure the program is making sound technical decisions across teams.
• Proactively identify technical risks, architectural friction points, and integration challenges before they become larger issues.
• Help ensure strong engineering rigor in system design, integration planning, testing strategy, and technical execution.
• Work closely with program management, engineering managers, product leadership, and technical leads to align architecture and delivery.
• Support technical planning, modernization efforts, risk reduction, release readiness, and cross-team coordination.
• Mentor technical leaders and help strengthen the engineering bench across the organization.
• Represent the program as a senior technical leader in customer and stakeholder engagements when needed.
• Progressively take on broader technical ownership in preparation for transition into the Chief Engineer role.

Job description

General Atomics Intelligence seeks a Deputy Chief Engineer to lead the technical direction of a large-scale, real-time software program supporting U.S. Government missions.

The role partners with the current Chief Engineer to learn the system, build trust, and progressively assume broader leadership responsibilities with an eye toward becoming Chief Engineer. This is a senior technical leadership position requiring proactive judgment, ownership of end-to-end system integrity, and the ability to