Job Title: MOSA System Integration Lead / Architect
Location: Aberdeen, San Antonio, or Remote. Hybrid if less than 40 miles from Aberdeen Proving Ground or Crystal City.
Type: Direct Hire / Perm
Security Clearance: Secret
We are seeking a Modular Open System Approach (MOSA) Architect & Systems Integration Lead for a critical Army portfolio to advise on strategy, policy, technical, and programmatic dimensions of MOSA implementation across the Army. This role is not just about compliance; it is about engineering lethality and flexibility in the next generation of Army systems. You will leverage Model-Based Systems Engineering (MBSE) and digital thread integration to define the logical boundaries and interfaces that allow the Army to swap components rapidly without vendor lock-in, helping ensure system architectures are interoperable, interchangeable, and ready for multi-domain operations.
This is not a compliance or documentation role. The right candidate understands why MOSA succeeds or fails in practice and the gap between well-intentioned policy and real acquisition behavior and can operate credibly with senior leaders, program managers, engineers, contracting professions, and Industry. The advisor will help translate emerging MOSA policy into implementable guidance, governance, and practice; diagnose and address the organizational, technical, contractual, and cultural barriers to adoption; and drive genuine buy-in across a community where "MOSA" means many things to many people. The advisor may provide technical direction to developmental personnel supporting MOSA workstreams, or directly execute portions of those efforts, depending on priorities.
Responsibilities
- Advise the Army MOSA lead on strategy, policy translation, and implementation across the acquisition enterprise.
- Diagnose barriers to MOSA adoption and develop practical, low-bureaucracy approaches to overcome them.
- Support development of implementation guidance, governance frameworks, seam/architecture management practices, modular contracting approaches, and data/module-description standards.
- Translate senior-level policy intent into actionable guidance for the acquisition community — and translate program-level realities back up to inform policy.
- Build and sustain buy-in across Government and Industry through credible, two-sided engagement.
- Provide technical direction to developmental personnel supporting MOSA workstreams as needed.
- Translate complex Army requirements into modular solutions using SysML. Develop model libraries and profiles to serve as the Authoritative Source of Truth for system-of-systems.
- Identify logical boundaries and system interfaces to enable seamless component interchangeability.
- Apply open standards (e.g., SOSA, DoDAF, and UAF) to practical hardware/software builds. Draft and refine DoD systems engineering guidance and technical criteria for MOSA implementation across Programs of Record.
- Design and manage digital threads, integrating MBSE with Product Lifecycle Management and DevSecOps stacks.
- Conduct trade-off studies and "what-if" assessments to balance modularity benefits against rapid deployment needs; defend MOSA business cases for milestone decisions.
- Support the development of technical assessment frameworks and performance metrics to evaluate MOSA compliance throughout the systems engineering V-model.
- Facilitate or engage in technical exchange meetings, potentially with various PAEs to drive digital convergence.
Required Qualifications - BS/MS in Systems, Electrical, or Computer Engineering (or equivalent technical industry experience).
- 10+ years in Systems Engineering or Data Architecture with a focus on Architecture Patterns (Microservices, SOA, REST).
- Ability to lead the development of innovative approaches in modernizing systems engineering practices.
- Deep familiarity with ISO/IEC 15288 and DoD 5000 series acquisition policies.
- Proven ability to integrate requirements management with architectural models to ensure end-to-end traceability.
- Experience advising data rights strategies to ensure long-term competitive sourcing and avoid vendor lock-in.
- Knowledge of conformance tools and verification suites to ensure modularity throughout the Systems Engineering V-model.
- Experience with MBSE tools (e.g., No Magic Cameo, IBM Rational Rhapsody, Sparx Enterprise Architect).
- Understands MOSA as a means to acquisition freedom and warfighting advantage — not a compliance exercise — and can articulate first principles to skeptical audiences.
- Understands why buy-in is hard — the incentive misalignments, business-model tensions, technical trade-offs, and cultural inertia that cause MOSA to stall or become paper compliance.
- Has enough technical and programmatic grounding to know when a modular boundary is real versus theoretical, and to engage credibly on architecture, interfaces, data rights, integration, and acquisition strategy.
- Familiarity with both acquisition strategy/policy and the technical/programmatic realities of execution with the ability to move between them credibly.
- A practical understanding of MOSA principles and the real-world barriers to their adoption.
- Working knowledge of DoD/Army acquisition and contracting fundamentals, including data rights and IP considerations.
- Ability to influence and build consensus among senior leaders, technical experts, and Industry.
- Strong communication skills across audiences, from senior leaders to working-level engineers.
- Sound judgment and comfort operating with ambiguity in a rapidly changing environment.
- Ability to make suggestions on next steps and tasks without.
- Active Secret.
Desirable Qualifications - Experience implementing — not merely documenting — MOSA or open-architecture approaches.
- Exposure to the failure modes of open-systems efforts (paper compliance, lock-in, misaligned incentives) and how they can be overcome.
- Perspective on both the Government and Industry sides of acquisition.
- Familiarity with digital engineering, reference architectures, open-architecture standards, and data/interface management.
System One, and its subsidiaries including Joulé and Mountain Ltd., are leaders in delivering outsourced services and workforce solutions across North America. We help clients get work done more efficiently and economically, without compromising quality. System One not only serves as a valued partner for our clients, but we offer eligible employees health and welfare benefits coverage options including medical, dental, vision, spending accounts, life insurance, voluntary plans, as well as participation in a 401(k) plan.
System One is an Equal Opportunity Employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex (including pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical conditions), sexual orientation, gender identity, age, national origin, disability, family care or medical leave status, genetic information, veteran status, marital status, or any other characteristic protected by applicable federal, state, or local law.
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Ref: #851-Rockville-S1
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