Survivability Strategist - GM Defense (Global)

Description The Role GM Defense delivers integrated vehicles, power and propulsion, and autonomy and connectivity solutions for global defense, security, and government customers. By leveraging GM's advanced commercial vehicle platforms, engineering expertise, and large-scale manufacturing, GM Defense rapidly adapts proven technologies into military-grade, mission-ready solutions that help customers improve mobility, readiness, and sustainment while managing cost and complexity. The Survivability Strategist is an individual contributor role responsible for defining the survivability strategy and roadmap for GM Defense in alignment with mission needs, customer expectations, and program objectives. This role determines the survivability capabilities, technical approaches, manufacturing strategies, and enabling workstreams required to build an enduring enterprise capability, including what work should be developed in-house, what should be outsourced, what partnerships should be established, and what design, material, manufacturing, and analysis standards are needed to support execution. The role leads the development of survivability concepts, requirements, trade studies, and integration recommendations to ensure survivability considerations are built into product architecture, design, and validation from the outset. What You'll Do Define the survivability strategy and roadmap for GM Defense in support of mission requirements, threat environments, customer expectations, and long-term business objectives Determine which survivability capabilities, analyses, tools, and technical workstreams should be developed in-house versus outsourced Identify, evaluate, and help establish external partnerships needed to build and scale survivability capability Develop and institutionalize survivability design best practices, material guidelines, manufacturing methods, and technical standards for use across programs Guide development of survivability-related requirements, design criteria, technical recommendations, and integration approaches across the product Lead trade studies to balance survivability, weight, performance, cost, manufacturability, and program timing Support development of survivability analysis methods, assessment approaches, and validation strategies to strengthen technical decision-making Work cross-functionally with engineering, manufacturing, integration, validation, supply chain, and program teams to embed survivability into product development Support identification and assessment of vulnerabilities, failure modes, and integration risks related to survivability Serve as a technical point of contact for survivability strategy and implementation with internal stakeholders, partners, and customers as needed Your Skills & Abilities (Required Qualifications) BSE, BS in Mechanical Engineering, Materials Engineering, Systems Engineering, or equivalent experience 10+ years professional experience in survivability-related engineering, strategy development, product integration, or equivalent technical roles Demonstrates effective interpersonal and communication skills to collaborate successfully with internal stakeholders, customers, suppliers, and external partners Strong understanding of survivability-related engineering principles, including design tradeoffs, material behavior, manufacturing strategies, and analysis methods Proven ability to define technical strategy and roadmap, including decisions on in-house development, outsourcing, partnerships, and enterprise capability build-out Demonstrated ability to lead trade studies that balance survivability, weight, performance, cost, manufacturability, and program timing Strong analytical ability to identify vulnerabilities, assess technical risk, and develop design, material, manufacturing, and analysis standards to support execution Demonstrated technical and professional skills in survivability-related product development, technical integration, and cross-functional decision-ma