Senior Staff Software Systems Engineer

maxar; Westminster (CO); On-site; USD 190,000 - 260,000; Full time

Job summary

Vantor is seeking a Senior Staff Software Systems Engineer to serve as the technical authority for a product or major product evolution. You will lead architecture, systems engineering, integration strategy, and technical execution across multiple engineering teams to ensure scalable, reliable software systems.

This role bridges Product and Engineering by validating customer needs, translating them into system architecture, and guiding technical decisions throughout the product lifecycle.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in CS, Software Engineering, Systems Engineering, or equivalent practical experience.
• Significant experience designing and delivering complex software-intensive systems.
• Experience serving as a technical lead across multiple engineering teams.
• Strong understanding of modern software architecture and distributed systems.
• Experience leading architecture reviews and technical decisions.

Responsibilities

• Serve as the technical authority for a product or major product evolution.
• Define system architecture and technical direction spanning multiple engineering teams.
• Partner with Product Management to validate customer needs and ensure planned capabilities solve the right customer problem.
• Lead architecture reviews, trade studies, and major technical decisions affecting product evolution.
• Drive system decomposition, interface definition, integration planning, and release sequencing.
• Balance technical, operational, lifecycle, and delivery tradeoffs across teams and releases.
• Identify and manage architectural, integration, schedule, and operational risks across the product lifecycle.
• Resolve cross-team technical conflicts and remove engineering friction.
• Establish engineering practices that improve consistency, quality, and delivery across teams.
• Mentor senior engineers and develop technical leadership throughout the organization.
• Guide products from concept through integration, validation, operational readiness, and customer deployment.
• AI-Enabled Systems Engineering: apply AI to accelerate architecture and systems analysis, identify risks earlier, improve validation.

Skills

Technical leadership

Software architecture

Distributed systems

System design

Cross-team collaboration

Cloud platforms

API design

Learning agility

Education

Bachelor's degree in Computer Science or related field

Job description

Vantor is forging the new frontier of spatial intelligence, helping decision makers and operators navigate what's happening now and shape what's coming next. Vantor is a place for problem solvers, changemakers, and go-getters-where people are working together to help our customers see the world differently, and in doing so, be seen differently. Come be part of a mission, not just a job, where you can: Shape your own future, build the next big thing, and change the world.

To be eligible for this position, you must be a U.S. Person, defined as a U.S. citizen, permanent resident, Asylee, or Refugee.

Export Control/ITAR: Certain roles may be subject to U.S. export control laws, requiring U.S. person status as defined by 8 U.S.C. 1324b(a)(3).

Please review the job details below.

Role scope

Product-level technical authority across multiple engineering teams, responsible for architecture, integration, technical tradeoffs, and delivery of a product or major product evolution.

The Role

We are seeking a Senior Staff Software Systems Engineer to serve as the technical authority for a product or major product evolution. You will lead architecture, systems engineering, integration strategy, and technical execution across multiple engineering teams to ensure we deliver scalable, reliable, and operationally successful software systems.

This role bridges Product and Engineering by validating customer needs, translating them into system architecture, and guiding technical decisions throughout the product lifecycle. You will influence through technical credibility, align multiple teams around shared engineering decisions, and improve how the organization makes technical tradeoffs.

Success requires balancing customer outcomes, technical excellence, delivery commitments, and long-term maintainability while leading complex, cross-functional initiatives.

What You’ll Do

• Serve as the technical authority for a product or major product evolution.
• Define system architecture and technical direction spanning multiple engineering teams.
• Partner with Product Management to validate customer needs and ensure planned capabilities solve the right customer problem.
• Lead architecture reviews, trade studies, and major technical decisions affecting product evolution.
• Drive system decomposition, interface definition, integration planning, and release sequencing.
• Balance technical, operational, lifecycle, and delivery tradeoffs across teams and releases.
• Identify and manage architectural, integration, schedule, and operational risks across the product lifecycle.
• Resolve cross-team technical conflicts and remove engineering friction.
• Establish engineering practices that improve consistency, quality, and delivery across teams.
• Mentor senior engineers and develop technical leadership throughout the organization.
• Guide products from concept through integration, validation, operational readiness, and customer deployment.

AI-Enabled Systems Engineering

AI-assisted software development increases engineering velocity and raises the importance of strong systems engineering. In this role, you will help the organization:

• Apply AI to accelerate architecture and systems analysis.
• Identify integration and operational risks earlier.
• Improve requirements validation and technical decision-making.
• Scale systems engineering practices to support AI-enabled development.

What We’re Looking For

Systems Thinking

You understand complex software systems as interconnected products rather than isolated components. You reason across architecture, interfaces, dependencies, operational workflows, constraints, and emergent behavior.

Software Architecture

You have experience designing and evolving large software-intensive systems. You understand distributed systems, cloud platforms, APIs, data architecture, resiliency, observability, scalability, security, and operational readiness.

Technical Leadership

You influence through technical judgment rather than organizational authority. You build alignment across multiple teams, facilitate difficult engineering decisions, and guide organizations through ambiguity.

Customer and Product Orientation

You understand customer missions well enough to challenge assumptions, validate evolving requirements, and keep engineering effort aligned with customer outcomes.

Learning Agility

You repeatedly develop expertise in unfamiliar technical domains, synthesize input from specialists, and make sound engineering decisions across multiple disciplines.

Required Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, Systems Engineering, or a related technical discipline, or equivalent practical experience.
• Significant experience designing and delivering complex software-intensive systems.
• Experience serving as a technical lead across multiple engineering teams.
• Strong understanding of modern software architecture and distributed systems.
• Experience leading architecture reviews and techni