Operational Analyst & Strategy Lead

The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory; Laurel (MD); On-site; USD 100,000 - 245,000; Full time

Job summary

The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) seeks an experienced Operational Analyst and Project Leader to join the National Security Analysis Department (NSAD). You will drive multidisciplinary projects addressing mission risk using a DOTMLPF framework and work across teams to deliver rigorous analyses.

You will grow into significant project leadership roles, mentoring staff, engaging sponsors, and advancing data-driven analytic approaches.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree or higher in operations research, mathematics, or related fields.
• At least seven years of relevant experience in technical or national security analysis.
• Experience analyzing operations, mission risk, force structure, readiness, or sustainment.
• Ability to frame complex problems into tractable analytic questions and defend approaches.
• Experience leading technical or analytic tasks and multidisciplinary teams.
• Ability to collaborate across organizations and analytic disciplines.

Responsibilities

• Conduct and lead operational analyses and mission risk assessments.
• Build and lead multidisciplinary project teams; foster accountability and collaboration.
• Define project scope, objectives, and analytic approaches with sponsors and teams.
• Lead disciplined project execution including staffing, schedules, and budgets.
• Ensure analytic rigor and integrate with mission engineering and modeling.
• Translate analytic results into clear insights for sponsor decisions.
• Serve as primary interface with sponsors; conduct status meetings and reviews.
• Develop sponsor relationships and contribute to proposals and new analytics.
• Contribute to data-driven and AI-enabled analytic workflows with rigor.

Skills

Operational analysis

Project leadership

Stakeholder engagement

Team leadership

Written communication

Travel readiness

Education

Bachelor's degree

Master's degree (preferred)

Ph.D. (preferred)

Tools

Modeling & Simulation

Mission engineering

DOTMLPF framework

Job description

The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) seeks an experienced Operational Analyst and Project Leader to join the National Security Analysis Department (NSAD). You will drive multidisciplinary projects addressing mission risk using a DOTMLPF framework and work across teams to deliver rigorous analyses.

You will grow into significant project leadership roles, mentoring staff, engaging sponsors, and advancing data-driven analytic approaches.