Developmental Engineer

You are the junior engineer in a Space Systems Command program office. The satellite program your office manages costs more than the GDP of a small country, and your job is to make sure the engineering data behind it is honest.

You work in a product office at Space Systems Command (SSC), Los Angeles AFB — or one of SSC's program detachments at Kirtland, Vandenberg, or Patrick — supporting the technical engineering baseline of a major space program. Day to day that means reviewing contractor engineering deliverables (Preliminary Design Review packages, Critical Design Review documents, interface control documents, test plans, anomaly reports), attending contractor technical interchange meetings, tracking open action items from engineering reviews, and drafting internal engineering assessment memos for your program manager. You are in the seat long enough to own a slice: maybe the integration risk tracking, maybe the ground-segment interface control, maybe the test-readiness review coordination. Nobody hands you the keys to the whole program; your job is to own your slice cold.

• 01Read and mark up a contractor Preliminary Design Review or Critical Design Review package — identify open design issues, interface risks, and requirements traceability gaps before the review board convenes.
• 02Manage a technical action item tracker: every open AI assigned with an owner, a due date, and a closure criterion that isn't vague.
• 03Brief the program chief engineer on engineering risk status — one slide, three risks, each with likelihood / consequence / mitigation — without fluff.
• 04Apply the Systems Engineering Plan (SEP) and the program's technical baseline documents to assess whether a contractor deliverable meets the contractual requirement.
• 05Execute DAWIA Engineering & Technical Management Practitioner course requirements at DAU on the published timeline for the 62E career field.
• 06Maintain TS/SCI clearance discipline: self-report, no foreign-contact lapses, SCIF physical security clean.

• —DoDI 5000.85 — Major Capability Acquisition. The policy framework that defines Milestone A/B/C decision structure for SF acquisition programs.
• —DAU SE Guide (Systems Engineering Guide for Systems of Systems) — the DAU resource 62E engineers use to calibrate SE rigor requirements.
• —DAFMAN 63-101/20-101 — Integrated Life Cycle Management. The DAF acquisition management DAFMAN governing SF program execution.
• —DoDI 5000.66 — Defense Acquisition Workforce Education, Training, Experience, and Career Development Program. The DAWIA credential framework.
• —USSPD 1 — Space Force Doctrine Publication 1, The Spacepower Doctrine. Institutional frame for the SF acquisition mission.

• —DAWIA Engineering & Technical Management Practitioner certification completed within the career-field published timeline — absence at the LT tier reads as a developmental gap.
• —TS/SCI clearance maintained clean — no SIF entries, no foreign-contact non-disclosures.
• —Assigned program engineering action items closed on time; red-status AIs briefed to the chief engineer before the review, not during it.
• —OPR support-form input delivered to rater with measurable outcomes; first OPR narrative covers at least two named engineering deliverables supported.

• —Accepting a contractor deliverable without verifying requirements traceability — a PDR package that says "requirement met" but can't show you the analysis is a flag the chief engineer will find. Better you find it first.
• —Letting an open action item age past its due date without escalation. The AI tracker is the institutional memory of the review; a stale AI signals you're not managing your slice.
• —Treating a technical interchange meeting as passive attendance. The TIM is where contractor risk surfaces. The engineer who isn't taking notes and asking technical questions is invisible.
• —Missing a DAWIA course enrollment window. DAU courses have wait-listed enrollments; missing the first available window pushes the certification timeline and shows on the developmental record.

The strong junior 62E is the engineer the chief engineer quotes at the program IPT: "Go ask Lt So-and-So — she owns that interface." By month 18 she has closed every AI assigned to her section before the next milestone review, she's briefed the risk status with one correction needed (not five), and her DAWIA Practitioner enrollment is calendared.

You are the technical authority in the room — or the technical conscience behind the program manager who is. At Captain and Major you own the engineering baseline for a program worth billions, and the contractor's engineers know your name.

You lead the systems engineering function for a major or subordinate space program at SSC. That means chairing the Systems Engineering Working Group, running the Critical Design Review preparation cycle, managing the requirements traceability matrix, writing the Systems Engineering Plan revision, and representing engineering interests in the Integrated Program Team (IPT) and at source-selection support. You may be the lead systems engineer on a Tranche-level SDA program, the chief engineer for a ground-segment subprogram, or the SE lead for a launch vehicle integration effort under NSSL. The program manager defers to you on the engineering call; the contractor's SE lead argues with you. Your DAWIA Engineering & Technical Management Senior Practitioner certification is in progress or complete. You're also building the developmental signals the O-4 board reads: a named program milestone, a CDR completion, a major technical risk retired.

• 01Chair a Critical Design Review — define the entrance criteria, lead the review board through the technical baseline, adjudicate contractor responses to review item dispositions (RIDs), and close the CDR with a written board finding.
• 02Write a Systems Engineering Plan revision that the Milestone Decision Authority's technical advisor accepts without re-work.
• 03Build and defend a technical risk register: likelihood, consequence, risk reduction plan, closure criteria, owner assigned.
• 04Lead a source selection technical evaluation panel — write the technical evaluation report that the SSA can use as the record of decision.
• 05Manage the requirements traceability matrix from Level 1 (system) through Level 3 (subsystem) and flag any orphaned requirements before the CDR board.
• 06Mentor junior 62E LTs in the program office — write developmental OPR inputs, assign engineering tasks with closure criteria, give post-TIM feedback.

• —DoDI 5000.85 — Major Capability Acquisition. Milestone B/C decision framework, the Acquisition Decision Memorandum structure, and the acquisition documentation requirements.
• —DAFMAN 63-101/20-101 — Integrated Life Cycle Management. DAF-level acquisition management requirements governing CDR, PDR, and SRR milestones.
• —DAU Systems Engineering Fundamentals Guide — the technical SE framework the 62E Senior Practitioner course references.
• —FAR / DFARS — Federal Acquisition Regulation and DoD Supplement. Source selection process and contract requirements as they intersect the engineering function.
• —DAFMAN 36-2406 — Officer Evaluation System. Know the OPR/PRF/Stratification system before the O-4 board window.

• —DAWIA Engineering & Technical Management Senior Practitioner certification on track by Major promotion — the field-grade credential signal.
• —Chaired at least one major technical review (PDR or CDR) with a written board finding accepted by the program office.
• —O-4 (Major) board selection — SF 2024-cycle rates were small-service published; pull the current SFPC board results for your category.
• —Named on at least one program milestone completion in the OPR narrative — PDR complete, CDR complete, Milestone B achieved.
• —Physical Fitness Assessment under DAFMAN 36-2905 passed every cycle — in a service of fewer than 10,000 the pattern is visible fast.

• —Letting the contractor own the requirements traceability matrix without independent verification. The RTM the contractor gives you is their answer to their own test; your job is to find where the level-2 requirement doesn't flow down.
• —Entering a CDR without documented entrance-criteria closure. An undocumented open PDR action item that surfaces during CDR stops the review and becomes your name in the post-review report.
• —Writing a technical evaluation report for source selection that uses the contractor's own terminology without independent technical assessment. The SSA's legal review will catch it; better you catch it first.
• —Treating the DAWIA Senior Practitioner certification as background noise. The O-5 board reads the developmental record; an unexplained gap in certification progression at Captain/Major requires the record to answer.

The strong Captain or Major 62E is the engineer the program manager calls before briefing the PEO: "What's our real technical risk posture?" She has closed the CDR with two open RIDs (documented, owned, on track), her risk register has three risks retired this quarter, and she's mentoring a LT who just passed the DAWIA Practitioner exam. The PEO knows her name.