Subject Matter Expert (SME) - System Requirements Management
Altentechnologyusa · Auburn Hills, Michigan, United States · Posted Jul 6, 2026
Apply on company site Track it in JobSkout
We’re ALTEN Technology USA, an engineering company helping clients bring groundbreaking ideas to life—from advancing space exploration and life-saving medical devices to building autonomous electric vehicles. With 3,000+ experts across North America, we partner with leading companies in aerospace, medical devices, robotics, automotive, commercial vehicles, EVs, rail, and more.
As part of the global ALTEN Group—57,000+ engineers in 30 countries—we deliver across the entire product development cycle, from consulting to full project outsourcing.
When you join ALTEN Technology USA, you’ll collaborate on some of the world’s toughest engineering challenges, supported by mentorship, career growth opportunities, and comprehensive benefits. We take pride in fostering a culture where employees feel valued, supported, and inspired to grow.
Position Summary:
The Subject Matter Expert (SME) – System Requirements Management is responsible for technical leadership of system requirements activities supporting vehicle feature development across multiple engineering domains.
Operating upstream of product design and verification activities, the SME evaluates the impact of new features, feature modifications, and carry-over content on existing vehicle system requirements.
The role serves as the authoritative voice for requirements management, ensuring that technical changes are properly assessed, documented, justified, and released before product design and validation activities begin.
The SME acts as a key interface between Vehicle Feature Owners, Systems Engineering, Architecture, Design Engineering, and Test Validation organizations.
Success in this role requires strong systems engineering knowledge, sound technical judgment, assertiveness, stakeholder management skills, and the ability to defend requirement decisions that may impact program timing, cost, and downstream engineering activities.
Additionally, the SME serves as a Cluster Lead, providing operational leadership and mentoring to a small team of Requirements Engineers.
System Domains (Priority Order):
Candidates should possess experience in one or more of the following vehicle system domains, with priority given to:
Energy Propulsion
Thermal Systems
Cabin Visibility
Chassis
Access / Access Operations
Cabin Climate Comfort
Vehicle Rights Management / Connectivity
Key Responsibilities:
Requirements Impact Assessment Governance
Evaluate technical impacts associated with:
New vehicle features
Feature enhancements
Feature modifications
Carry-over content between vehicle programs
Determine whether changes require creation, modification, or release of system requirements.
Provide technical direction to Requirements Engineers regarding required updates and requirement rework activities.
Ensure requirements remain:
Complete
Consistent
Traceable
Verifiable
Aligned to intended feature functionality
Drive requirement reviews and release decisions.
Serve as technical authority for system requirement content and quality.
Front-End Systems Engineering:
Operate upstream of design engineering and validation organizations.
Translate customer, business, regulatory, and feature needs into robust system-level requirements.
Analyze feature interactions and cross-functional dependencies.
Identify technical gaps, assumptions, conflicts, and risks during early development phases.
Support development of system architecture concepts when necessary to ensure requirement quality.
Collaborate with Vehicle Feature Owners and Architecture teams to assess technical impacts of proposed changes.
Stakeholder Management Technical Representation:
Represent the Requirements Management organization within Client and customer-facing discussions.
Defend requirement decisions and recommendations when challenged by development teams.
Facilitate technical alignment among:
Vehicle Feature Owners
Systems Engineering
Architecture teams
Design Engineering teams
Test Validation organizations
Program leadership
Present and synthesize complex technical information for audiences ranging from technical specialists to executive stakeholders.
Drive decisions through influence and technical credibility.
Process Improvement
Promote INCOSE-aligned systems engineering practices.
Improve requirements management methodologies, standards, and governance processes.
Contribute to organizational capability growth in:
Requirements Engineering
Systems Engineering
Change Management
Technical Risk Assessment
Leadership Cluster Lead Responsibilities
In addition to technical SME responsibilities, the role includes operational leadership of a small team.
Responsibilities include:
Team Leadership
Lead and mentor a team of Requirements Engineers.
Provide technical coaching.
Establish workload priorities and engineering objectives.
Promote a collaborative, high-performance team culture.
Planning Execution
Perform workload planning and task scheduling.
Monitor delive…