Mission Engineer (Intelligence Analyst)

General Atomics Intelligence; Charlottesville (VA); On-site; USD 100,000 - 171,000; Full time

Job summary

GA-Intelligence is seeking a senior Subject Matter Expert / Mission Engineer to embed with operators and customers, turning mission needs into working software rather than slides. You will operate across DoD, the Intelligence Community, and international partners, delivering deployable AI capabilities that fit real workflows.

You will lead design, prototyping, and fielding of C2, PED, COP, and training tools, while mentoring engineers and ensuring solutions ship on time.

Qualifications

• Minimum of 12 years of experience in operational military, intelligence, or defense mission environments.
• Recognized subject matter expert in at least one operational mission area — ISR, RPA / remotely piloted aircraft, PED, C2, or a closely related discipline.
• Demonstrated ability to translate operational need into software requirements, technical scope, and delivered capability, not just documentation.
• Hands-on experience building working tools with modern AI / agentic engineering stacks (e.g., LLM APIs, agent frameworks, MCP, Python)

Responsibilities

• Deploy to customer sites for embeds, observe workflows, capture requirements, and deliver working capability before you leave.
• Serve as GA-Intelligence’s senior mission and technical presence with operators, analysts, and program stakeholders.
• Apply agentic engineering — LLM-based agents, tool use, MCP, APIs, and lightweight applications — to automate workflows.
• Design, prototype, and field custom solutions for C2, PED, COP, training, and mission-software problems, then fold what works back into product roadmaps.
• Translate operator and customer need into clear, actionable requirements for engineering and research teams.
• Work inside accreditation, network, and classification constraints; deploy software and models in customer environments.
• Lead integration, test, and operational validation of mission software and payload-adjacent capability.
• Build training materials, technical documentation, and SOPs to enable adoption.
• Advise U.S. and international partners on scope, timelines, and integration with existing platforms.
• Mentor junior engineers and mission SMEs, raising the technical bar for deployable AI tools.
• Drive adoption — train users and ensure deliverables survive real mission schedules.
• Represent GA-Intelligence to senior government and partner stakeholders and shape investment in deployable agentic capability.

Skills

Agentic engineering stacks

LLM APIs

Python

Translate requirements

Tools

MCP

Job description

Job Summary

GA-Intelligence maintains and deploys production systems for users across the Intelligence Community, Department of War, and commercial industry. We build and develop best-in-class all domain and globally focused situational awareness capabilities, including THRESHER and DRAGONSPELL, that process petabytes of data from numerous streaming data sources in near real time. Our systems apply state-of-the-art algorithms and machine learning techniques to extract features and fuse data from multiple sources to form a rich live view of objects in the sky, on the sea, and on the ground. These analytics are designed to determine not just where something is, but what it is, where it’s been, and what it’s doing. All of this “data to knowledge” is made available to end users in our own browser-based application for visualization, analysis, and understanding. We always want to do more, and that’s where you come in.

GA-Intelligence is seeking a senior Subject Matter Expert / Mission Engineer to sit with operators and customers, understand the work they actually do, and leave them with working software — not a slide deck and a promise. This is a deployable role: you will typically embed with a user organization for one to two weeks at a time, on CONUS or OCONUS sites, then return to our engineering teams to harden, productize, and hand off what you built. The point of the short cycle is leverage. You absorb the mission problem at the point of use, build something that survives contact with a real workflow, and bring the next version of the product back with you.

The core of the job is agentic engineering in the mission environment. You will use modern AI tooling — foundation models, tool-using agents, MCP servers, APIs, and lightweight applications — to automate the ugly middle of operator and analyst work: requirements capture, PED and COP workflows, C2 support tools, training and documentation generation, data wrangling, and the one-off integrations that never make the roadmap until someone is sitting next to the user. You are expected to know the mission deeply enough to recognize when a classical engineering approach wins, and to say so. You are also expected to ship.

You will operate as a customer-facing technical authority across DoD, Intelligence Community, and international partner accounts. That means translating operational need into scope an engineering team can build, advising on what is feasible inside accreditation and network constraints, and staying with the solution through integration, test, training, and adoption. You are not a liaison who writes tickets and disappears. You are the person who can sit in a mission planning cell, a PED floor, or a partner training detachment and produce a working prototype before you leave.

As a Level 4, you are expected to set direction rather than take it. You will shape how GA-Intelligence applies agentic engineering to customer problems, mentor engineers and other mission SMEs, and influence where the company invests in deployable AI capability.

DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES;

• Deploy to customer and partner sites for short-duration embeds — typically one to two weeks — to observe workflows, capture requirements, and deliver working capability before you leave
• Serve as GA-Intelligence’s senior mission and technical presence with operators, analysts, and program stakeholders, building trusted working relationships that survive after you rotate home
• Apply agentic engineering — LLM-based agents, tool use, MCP, APIs, and lightweight applications — to automate analyst, operator, and staff workflows that have historically been done by hand
• Design, prototype, and field custom solutions for C2, PED, COP, training, and mission-software problems, then fold what works back into product and engineering roadmaps
• Translate operator and customer need into clear, actionable requirements for engineering and research teams, and close the loop when capability ships
• Work inside accreditation, network, and classification constraints rather than around them; deploy software and models that can actually run in the customer environment
• Lead integration, test, and operational validation of mission software and payload-adjacent capability so new tools meet performance standards and fit fielded systems
• Build training materials, technical documentation, and tactics, techniques, and procedures that get users proficient — and stay with adoption through onboarding and first operational use
• Advise U.S. and international partners on technical scope, timelines, and integration with existing platforms and mission systems
• Mentor junior engineers and mission SMEs, and raise the technical bar on how the company builds and deploys customer-facing AI tools
• Drive adoption — train users, build trust in the tooling, and make sure what we deliver survives a real mission schedule
• Represent GA-Intelligence’s mission and technical capabilities to senior government and partner stakeholders, and shape company investment in deployable agentic capability

We recognize and appreciate the value and contributions of individuals with diverse backgrounds and experiences and welcome all qualified individuals to apply.

Job Qualifications

• Minimum of 12 years of experience in operational military, intelligence, or defense mission environments, including direct work with operators, analysts, or international partners
• Recognized subject matter expert in at least one operational mission area — ISR, RPA / remotely piloted aircraft, PED, C2, or a closely related discipline — with credibility among operators and program stakeholders
• Demonstrated ability to translate operational need into software requirements, technical scope, and delivered capability, not just documentation
• Hands-on experience building working tools with modern AI / agentic engineering stacks (for example: LLM APIs, agent frameworks, MCP, Python, or equivalent), not only briefing about them

Job Type: Full-Time Salary

Salary range: 99,500 - 170,750