Lead Defense Systems Engineer | AI-Driven Leader

General Motors Company; Warren (MI); Hybrid; USD 150,000 - 210,000; Full time

Job summary

GM Defense, a segment of General Motors, seeks a Lead System Engineer to lead Systems Engineers in defining and rolling down system requirements, aligning interfaces, and executing verification planning for mission-driven, affordable, and manufacturable solutions.

You will drive cross-functional collaboration and manage AI-enabled requirements development across mechanical, electrical, and controls domains.

Qualifications

• BSE, BS in Mechanical Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Systems Engineering, or equivalent experience.
• 10+ years professional experience in systems engineering, requirements development, product integration, or equivalent technical roles.
• 5+ years of systems engineering experience within the defense industry, supporting development, integration, and verification of complex defense systems.
• Demonstrates effective interpersonal and communication skills to collaborate with cross-functional teams, customers, and business development partners.
• Strong understanding of engineering theory and principles of operation of mechanical, electrical, controls, and integrated vehicle systems.
• Proven ability to lead multidisciplinary teams in requirements development, interface alignment, integration, and technical issue resolution.
• Demonstrated ability to develop and execute System DFMEA, participate in Fault Tree Analysis, and collaborate on verification and validation planning.
• Strong analytical ability to translate customer and product objectives into executable system requirements, availability targets, and mitigation plans.
• Demonstrated technical and professional skills in systems engineering, including requirements management, traceability, risk identification, and cross-functional decision-making.
• Ability to apply AI-enabled tools and methods to improve requirements quality, speed, consistency, and traceability while building team capability through effective adoption practices.
• Candidate must be a U.S. Person (U.S. citizen, U.S. permanent resident, asylee or refugee).

Responsibilities

• Lead a team of Systems Engineers in development, decomposition, and roll-down of system requirements across the product.
• Ensure subsystem requirements, interfaces, and verification plans are aligned to overall mission and program objectives.
• Drive system-level integration across engineering disciplines to deliver a cohesive and executable product definition.
• Lead cross-functional collaboration to ensure requirements support safety, performance, cost, timing, manufacturability, and validation objectives.
• Oversee interface definition, requirements traceability, and verification planning across systems and subsystems.
• Create System DFMEA and ensure system failure modes are understood, documented, and addressed through the design process.
• Participate in Fault Tree Analysis and support development of the technical understanding needed to identify risk drivers and mitigation paths.
• Collaborate on the V&V plan across mechanical, electrical, and controls domains to ensure the system is validated against requirements and intended performance.
• Lead the integration and issue resolution of the system through the full development cycle.
• Work with subsystem and component teams to optimize system design and improve total system performance.
• Set availability targets, allocate them to subsystems and components, determine feature sensitivity to variation and failure modes, and define mitigation plans to improve performance to target.
• Stay abreast of new technology, new processes, and new methods used to predict and improve availability.
• Apply AI-enabled tools to improve the quality, speed, consistency, and traceability of requirements development.
• Ensure the team receives required AI training and adopts AI tools and methods effectively within the systems engineering process.
• Identify technical and integration risks early and lead resolution of cross-system issues that could impact program execution.
• Support development of a scalable system architecture and requirements framework that can be successfully executed through development and launch.

Skills

Systems engineering leadership

Requirements development

Cross-functional collaboration

DFMEA

Verification planning

AI in systems engineering

Education

BSE / BS in Mechanical Engineering

Electrical / Systems Engineering background

Job description

GM Defense, a segment of General Motors, seeks a Lead System Engineer to lead Systems Engineers in defining and rolling down system requirements, aligning interfaces, and executing verification planning for mission-driven, affordable, and manufacturable solutions.

You will drive cross-functional collaboration and manage AI-enabled requirements development across mechanical, electrical, and controls domains.