Senior Enterprise Architect — Space Systems & MBSE

National Reconnaissance Office; Chantilly (VA); On-site; USD 122,000 - 158,000; Full time

Job summary

The National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) in Chantilly, VA, seeks an experienced Enterprise Architect in the System Engineering Directorate to shape and advance the NRO Enterprise Architecture across space, ground, and data domains. You will lead MBSE-based analysis, develop CONOPS, and publish architecture artifacts to support investment decisions.

Requires a Bachelor’s degree in a technical field and hands-on experience in systems engineering, MBSE, and space mission architectures.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s Degree in a Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics, Physics, Computer Science, or comparable technical discipline.
• Experience in systems engineering, model-based systems engineering, and/or digital engineering.
• Experience defining system-level requirements and interfaces across complex, multi-domain architectures.
• Experience developing and documenting CONOPS and system architectures for space missions.
• Expertise in space system architectures, including satellite platforms, communications payloads, ground stations, and networked systems.

Responsibilities

• Serves as an engineer and architect for the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) Systems Engineering Directorate (SED) formulating and providing technical and professional assessments on capabilities and Intelligence Community mission needs and/or issues affecting the NRO.
• Leads end-to-end overhead reconnaissance architecture development (space, ground, data, infrastructure, etc.)
• Designs and publishes system-of-systems architectures — Builds, baselines, and continuously updates enterprise architectures and detailed architecture artifacts
• Turns authoritative data into actionable architecture — Ingests, reformats, validates, and publishes “As-Is” and “To-Be” architecture products, ensuring the enterprise always has an accurate, trusted picture of its systems.
• Conducts architectural trade studies, evaluates technical feasibility, and validates that proposed designs can achieve mission objectives.
• Defines and maintains accurate, complete, and accessible architecture documentation, including Concepts of Operations (CONOPS), system diagrams, and interface definitions
• Shapes enterprise architecture governance — Help develop, maintain, and execute the architecture governance framework that guides how mission-critical systems evolve across the enterprise.
• Serves as the go‑to architecture expert —advises senior leaders, delivers data-driven recommendations, and helps translate strategic objectives into sound architectural decisions.
• Prepares and briefs senior management through project development cycles

Skills

Systems engineering

MBSE

Digital engineering

Requirements analysis

Architecture documentation

Education

Bachelor’s degree in a technical discipline

Job description

The National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) in Chantilly, VA, seeks an experienced Enterprise Architect in the System Engineering Directorate to shape and advance the NRO Enterprise Architecture across space, ground, and data domains. You will lead MBSE-based analysis, develop CONOPS, and publish architecture artifacts to support investment decisions.

Requires a Bachelor’s degree in a technical field and hands-on experience in systems engineering, MBSE, and space mission architectures.