Lead Defense Systems Engineer - AI-Enabled

General Motors Company; Milford Charter Township (MI); Hybrid; USD 140,000 - 190,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Hybrid work model

Company vehicle program

Relocation assistance

Job summary

GM Defense is seeking a Lead System Engineer to direct a team of Systems Engineers across the full lifecycle of defense vehicle programs. You will define, decompose, and roll-down system requirements, align subsystem interfaces, and oversee verification planning to ensure mission success and manufacturability.

AI tools will be used to refine requirements and train the team. The role requires strong cross-disciplinary leadership, DFMEA/FTA experience, and deep knowledge of V&V planning,

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 the development, integration, and verification of complex defense systems.

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

Requirements development

Product integration

Cross-functional collaboration

DFMEA

Fault Tree Analysis

V&V planning

AI tools adoption

Team leadership

Communication

Education

BSE/BS in Mechanical Engineering or Systems Engineering

Job description

GM Defense is seeking a Lead System Engineer to direct a team of Systems Engineers across the full lifecycle of defense vehicle programs. You will define, decompose, and roll-down system requirements, align subsystem interfaces, and oversee verification planning to ensure mission success and manufacturability.

AI tools will be used to refine requirements and train the team. The role requires strong cross-disciplinary leadership, DFMEA/FTA experience, and deep knowledge of V&V planning,