Defense contracting at the tier-one level is less about theoretical engineering and more about surviving the DoD acquisition gauntlet. Lockheed Martin is deploying a part-time, highly cleared engineering and operations consultant in New York to audit failing electronic warfare architectures and save massive government bids. You aren’t here to build the initial CAD models; you are the elite “Red Team” hired to tear them apart, find the fatal flaws, and fix the physics before the hardware fails MIL-SPEC testing on the taxpayers’ dime.
SCIF Confinement & Red Team Authority
The reality of advising on Top Secret aerospace portfolios means complete isolation. You will operate strictly within a SCIF (Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility) — no cell phones, no smartwatches, no outside contact. In exchange for this physical friction, you are granted absolute technical authority. You are the independent auditor responsible for interrogating internal engineering teams, ensuring their avionics systems can actually survive the brutal environmental and electromagnetic realities of the modern battlefield.
Technical Execution & Triage
- Red Team Interrogation: Pressure-test complex avionics and EW architectures. You must actively hunt for critical vulnerabilities and single points of failure in the schematics before the company commits millions to physical prototyping.
- DoD Capture Defense: Audit the engineering narratives on massive government bids. If the cost-to-build estimates or technical claims are mathematically unsound, you must flag them before the DoD rejects the proposal.
- MIL-STD Enforcement: Enforce uncompromising compliance with MIL-STD environmental and EMI testing. The hardware must survive extreme g-forces and electronic jamming, not just look good in a simulation.
- Supply Chain Triage: Identify critical ITAR-restricted bottlenecks. A brilliant radar design is useless if it relies on rare-earth materials that are embargoed or unavailable in the supply chain.
- Executive Translation: Strip the dense MBSE jargon from your findings and deliver blunt, actionable truth to non-technical military stakeholders and Lockheed executives.
The Graybeard Prerequisites
- The Golden Ticket: Active DoD Top Secret (TS/SCI) clearance is absolute. Do not apply if your clearance has lapsed. This is the ultimate barrier to entry that guarantees your high hourly rate.
- Decades of Scar Tissue: 15+ years of hardened experience in radar, EW, or aerospace hardware. You need the institutional weight to look a Lead Engineer in the eye and tell them their system design is fundamentally flawed.
- Acquisition Fluency: Deep, practical survival skills within the DoD 5000 series acquisition lifecycle and Model-Based Systems Engineering (MBSE) frameworks.
- Academic Baseline: A Master’s or Ph.D. in Aerospace or Electrical Engineering is required to possess the mathematical authority necessary for this level of hardware audit.
Compensation & Consultant Leverage
This role offers the ultimate geographic and professional leverage for a senior Subject Matter Expert operating in the Tri-State area.
- Base Compensation: $110 – $150 USD / Hour. Highly lucrative for a part-time deployment, allowing you to maximize your income without the grind of a 50-hour corporate week.
- The Clearance Subsidy: The hidden value here is massive. Lockheed Martin absorbs the administrative cost of maintaining your TS/SCI clearance, keeping you legally employable in the shadow defense market.
- The “SME” Downshift: You wield the power of a Chief Engineer, actively shaping highly classified defense frameworks, but without the burden of managing direct reports or HR headaches.
- Corporate Access: Prorated benefits, clearance maintenance, and specialized travel concierge services for mandatory visits to testing facilities.
Deployment Logistics & Security Protocols
- The SCIF Confinement
- Location: New York, NY. Status: 100% On-Site (Part-Time). Remote work on Top Secret EW schematics is a federal crime. You must be physically present inside the Manhattan SCIF to legally access the data and interface with the hardware.
- Relocation Posture
- Zero relocation assistance. Lockheed is strictly hunting for a cleared unicorn already residing in the Tri-State area who can be badged-in and deployed immediately.
