Job Requirements
Remote
Secret Polygraph Unspecified
Career Level not specified
Salary not specified
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Job Description
Job Location: Remote
Travel Requirement: up to 25%
Security Clearance: Must obtain and maintain a Top-Secret Security Clearance
About Sherpa 6
Sherpa 6, Inc. is a Service-Disabled Veteran-Owned Small Business (SDVOSB) delivering tactical networking, mission software, and autonomy capabilities to the Department of War and the broader defense community. At the center of our portfolio is Watchtower, unified endpoint management built for the tactical edge, managing radios, unmanned systems, and mission equipment alongside conventional endpoints. The rest of the portfolio, ARPO, RAB, TRAKR, HERMES, STACK, and E3, is fielded across demanding operational environments. We solve hard integration problems at the edge and turn emerging technology into deployable capability.
The Role
The Principal Solution Architect is a senior technical leadership role in our Solution Architecture function within the CTO organization. Principals own the architecture of Sherpa 6's most strategic pursuits end to end, framing the problem with capture, shaping the technical solution with domain architects and engineering subject-matter experts, and ensuring solutions transition cleanly to the teams that execute them.
This is a dedicated, strategically funded role, not a resource borrowed against billable delivery. Your time is deliberately protected for the work that is chronically under-resourced when architecture competes with delivery demands: capture solutioning, reference-architecture development, execution handover, roadmap influence, and mentorship. You will help lead and grow the Solution Architecture function.
In your first year, you will architect several of Sherpa 6's most strategic pursuits, spanning tactical-edge endpoint management, mission software integration, and data-contract-driven interoperability, carrying each from capture framing through reference architecture and Basis of Estimate into execution handover. The work is roughly two-thirds hands-on architecture and estimation and one-third advisory: shaping bid strategy, mentoring domain architects, and influencing the technical roadmap. We measure success not by proposals submitted but by whether the architecture you set lands in delivery, preserved in the WBS, the estimates, and the engineering intent that teams carry from award through execution.
Key Responsibilities
• Frame the opportunity. Partner with Business Development and Capture to internalize the customer problem, constraints, scope, and CONOPS before solutioning begins, translating mission needs into winnable, fundable technical approaches.
• Architect the solution. Lead development of reference architectures and the Product Breakdown Structure (PBS), which captures the work areas, products, vendors, and partners an opportunity requires, working with domain Solution Architects and engineering SMEs. Author the common Level 4 Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) that serves as the ROM baseline and decomposes into SME driven initiatives, epics, and stories for delivery teams.
• Lead cost and technical rigor. Own ROMs and Basis-of-Estimate (BOE) proposal development; ensure estimates are grounded by the teams and SMEs who will perform the work and quality-checked against historical actuals from similar efforts for relevance and clarity.
• Own the handover to execution. Ensure solutions transition cleanly to the delivery organization, personally accountable for the architecture landing with the program and engineering teams so intent is preserved from award through execution.
• Shape the technical roadmap. Serve as a standing member of BD strategy sessions, aligning engineering directorates and product owners/managers with market analysis and pipeline to shape future product and service capabilities, so capability matures ahead of the RFP rather than reactively after it.
• Influence bid decisions. Provide technical input to bid/no-bid decisions and represent Sherpa 6 in customer-facing technical exchanges.
• Develop the bench. Mentor Senior, mid-level, and Associate Solution Architects; contribute to the function's practice standards, templates, and CMMI-aligned process discipline. Provide senior technical leadership and depth as the function grows.
Domain Breadth
Principals operate across the full solution portfolio rather than owning a single domain. The strongest candidates bring deep expertise in one of the three architecture domains below and working fluency across the other two:
• Tactical networking & transport: Commercial communications, Software defined networking, tactical radios, SATCOM, private 5G, mmWave.
• Mission software & platforms: Watchtower unified endpoint management (UEM/MDM) orchestrating tactical radios, unmanned systems, and mission equipment alongside conventional endpoints; plus TRAKR, E3, and ARPO applications and integrations.
• Data, AI/ML & autonomy: Watchtower analytics, AI/ML integration, mission autonomy.
Requirements
Preferred Qualifications
Background Screening/Check/Investigation:
Successful completion of a background screening/check/investigation will/may be required as a condition of hire.
ADA:
Sherpa 6 will make reasonable accommodations in compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act 1990.
EEO/AA:
Sherpa 6 does not discriminate based on race, color, national origin, sex, religion age, disability, sexual orientation, gender identity, veteran status, height, weight, or marital status in employment or the provision of services and is an equal access/opportunity/affirmative action employer.
Benefits:
We offer a competitive benefits package, covering the cost of medical for you and your family; we also offer dental, vision, health and wellness benefits and a generous retirement savings plan. We believe that our employees can manage their workload and their personal life, therefore we extend a generous PTO policy. This allows our employees to balance their lives as they see fit.
Travel Requirement: up to 25%
Security Clearance: Must obtain and maintain a Top-Secret Security Clearance
About Sherpa 6
Sherpa 6, Inc. is a Service-Disabled Veteran-Owned Small Business (SDVOSB) delivering tactical networking, mission software, and autonomy capabilities to the Department of War and the broader defense community. At the center of our portfolio is Watchtower, unified endpoint management built for the tactical edge, managing radios, unmanned systems, and mission equipment alongside conventional endpoints. The rest of the portfolio, ARPO, RAB, TRAKR, HERMES, STACK, and E3, is fielded across demanding operational environments. We solve hard integration problems at the edge and turn emerging technology into deployable capability.
The Role
The Principal Solution Architect is a senior technical leadership role in our Solution Architecture function within the CTO organization. Principals own the architecture of Sherpa 6's most strategic pursuits end to end, framing the problem with capture, shaping the technical solution with domain architects and engineering subject-matter experts, and ensuring solutions transition cleanly to the teams that execute them.
This is a dedicated, strategically funded role, not a resource borrowed against billable delivery. Your time is deliberately protected for the work that is chronically under-resourced when architecture competes with delivery demands: capture solutioning, reference-architecture development, execution handover, roadmap influence, and mentorship. You will help lead and grow the Solution Architecture function.
In your first year, you will architect several of Sherpa 6's most strategic pursuits, spanning tactical-edge endpoint management, mission software integration, and data-contract-driven interoperability, carrying each from capture framing through reference architecture and Basis of Estimate into execution handover. The work is roughly two-thirds hands-on architecture and estimation and one-third advisory: shaping bid strategy, mentoring domain architects, and influencing the technical roadmap. We measure success not by proposals submitted but by whether the architecture you set lands in delivery, preserved in the WBS, the estimates, and the engineering intent that teams carry from award through execution.
Key Responsibilities
• Frame the opportunity. Partner with Business Development and Capture to internalize the customer problem, constraints, scope, and CONOPS before solutioning begins, translating mission needs into winnable, fundable technical approaches.
• Architect the solution. Lead development of reference architectures and the Product Breakdown Structure (PBS), which captures the work areas, products, vendors, and partners an opportunity requires, working with domain Solution Architects and engineering SMEs. Author the common Level 4 Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) that serves as the ROM baseline and decomposes into SME driven initiatives, epics, and stories for delivery teams.
• Lead cost and technical rigor. Own ROMs and Basis-of-Estimate (BOE) proposal development; ensure estimates are grounded by the teams and SMEs who will perform the work and quality-checked against historical actuals from similar efforts for relevance and clarity.
• Own the handover to execution. Ensure solutions transition cleanly to the delivery organization, personally accountable for the architecture landing with the program and engineering teams so intent is preserved from award through execution.
• Shape the technical roadmap. Serve as a standing member of BD strategy sessions, aligning engineering directorates and product owners/managers with market analysis and pipeline to shape future product and service capabilities, so capability matures ahead of the RFP rather than reactively after it.
• Influence bid decisions. Provide technical input to bid/no-bid decisions and represent Sherpa 6 in customer-facing technical exchanges.
• Develop the bench. Mentor Senior, mid-level, and Associate Solution Architects; contribute to the function's practice standards, templates, and CMMI-aligned process discipline. Provide senior technical leadership and depth as the function grows.
Domain Breadth
Principals operate across the full solution portfolio rather than owning a single domain. The strongest candidates bring deep expertise in one of the three architecture domains below and working fluency across the other two:
• Tactical networking & transport: Commercial communications, Software defined networking, tactical radios, SATCOM, private 5G, mmWave.
• Mission software & platforms: Watchtower unified endpoint management (UEM/MDM) orchestrating tactical radios, unmanned systems, and mission equipment alongside conventional endpoints; plus TRAKR, E3, and ARPO applications and integrations.
• Data, AI/ML & autonomy: Watchtower analytics, AI/ML integration, mission autonomy.
Requirements
- Bachelor's degree in engineering discipline, Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, Systems Engineering or a related technical field; equivalent experience considered .
- 10+ years of progressive experience in defense technology, software development, systems engineering, or tactical networks, or equivalent depth demonstrated through pursuits architected end to end, including senior solutioning or lead architect responsibility on complex pursuits.
- Demonstrated ownership of technical solutions across capture and proposal efforts: reference architectures, ROMs, and WBS development.
- Demonstrated ownership of Basis-of-Estimate (BOE) development on complex pursuits, including the basis behind the estimate and how actuals performed against it.
- Experience partnering with systems engineering on requirements development and review, and familiarity with PDR/CDR-class milestone reviews and engineering reports.
- Hands-on execution experience in one or more of the solution domains, not solely architecture or oversight, so estimates and handovers are grounded in having performed the work.
Preferred Qualifications
- Advanced degree (MBA or technical master's).
- Cybersecurity fluency spanning the system lifecycle, RMF/ATO, zero-trust architecture, cross-domain solutions, and secure-by-design/DevSecOps practices, so solutions field with a credible accreditation path rather than a bolt-on.
- Mobile Device Management (MDM) and endpoint security for tactical end-user devices, provisioning, policy enforcement, and lifecycle management for fielded mobility operating in disconnected and contested environments.
- Deep tactical communications experience beyond transport selection, PACE planning, transport diversity, and architecting for degraded, denied, intermittent, and limited (DDIL) conditions across SATCOM, tactical radios, private 5G, and mmWave.
- Prior experience of operating at a technical-leadership level across multiple concurrent pursuits.
- Working knowledge of DoW acquisition pathways (e.g., SBIR, OTA, BAA, IDIQ) and the artifacts they demand.
- DoDAF 2.0-aligned architecture experience and MOSA/data-contract fluency.
- Familiarity with SAFe/Agile decomposition (initiatives/epics/stories) and estimate-to-actual cost modeling.
- Track record influencing product roadmaps through business development or market analysis.
- Security Clearance
Background Screening/Check/Investigation:
Successful completion of a background screening/check/investigation will/may be required as a condition of hire.
ADA:
Sherpa 6 will make reasonable accommodations in compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act 1990.
EEO/AA:
Sherpa 6 does not discriminate based on race, color, national origin, sex, religion age, disability, sexual orientation, gender identity, veteran status, height, weight, or marital status in employment or the provision of services and is an equal access/opportunity/affirmative action employer.
Benefits:
We offer a competitive benefits package, covering the cost of medical for you and your family; we also offer dental, vision, health and wellness benefits and a generous retirement savings plan. We believe that our employees can manage their workload and their personal life, therefore we extend a generous PTO policy. This allows our employees to balance their lives as they see fit.
group id: 91099474