Principal/Sr Principal Software Engineer*

RELOCATION ASSISTANCE: Relocation assistance may be available

CLEARANCE REQUIRED FOR START: Yes

CLEARANCE TYPE: Secret

TRAVEL: Yes, 10% of the Time

Description

At Northrop Grumman, our employees have incredible opportunities to work on revolutionary systems that impact people's lives around the world today, and for generations to come. Our pioneering and inventive spirit has enabled us to be at the forefront of many technological advancements in our nation's history - from the first flight across the Atlantic Ocean, to stealth bombers, to landing on the moon. We look for people who have bold new ideas, courage and a pioneering spirit to join forces to invent the future, and have fun along the way. Our culture thrives on intellectual curiosity, cognitive diversity and bringing your whole self to work — and we have an insatiable drive to do what others think is impossible. Our employees are not only part of history, they're making history.

Join Northrop Grumman on our continued mission to push the boundaries of possible across land, sea, air, space, and cyberspace. Enjoy a culture where your voice is valued and start contributing to our team of passionate professionals providing real-life solutions to our world’s biggest challenges. We take pride in creating purposeful work and allowing our employees to grow and achieve their goals every day by Defining Possible. With our competitive pay and comprehensive benefits, we have the right opportunities to fit your life and launch your career today.

We are seeking an experienced AI software engineer to join our data science and product teams. The ideal candidate will blend strong programming skills with deep familiarity in LLM deployment, agentic AI frameworks, and large scale data platforms. This role will contribute to building end to end AI solutions that drive product differentiation and scale.
Northrop Grumman Defense Systems is seeking Principal/Senior Principal AI Engineer Software. This is a dual level position and will be located in Location(s): Roy, Utah and will support the Sentinel program.
What You’ll Get To Do. 
• Defines, develops, and delivers novel mathematical and statistical modeling and algorithm development to tackle the challenges of prediction, optimization, and classification.
• Applies machine learning algorithms to large sets of structured and unstructured data to solve a broad range of problems that include applications in pattern recognition, target detection and tracking, machine learning and decision systems, and robotic systems.
• Prototypes advanced artificial intelligence techniques to stretch the capability of autonomous systems research and development programs. 
•Designs, develops, documents, tests and debugs applications software and systems that contain logical and mathematical solutions.
• Collaborates with cross-functional team to deploy machine learning algorithms to prototype testing and production. Ensures software standards are met. 
• May use system-of-systems and multi-agent approaches to architect and design AI software systems.
• Perform integration testing, regression testing, and formal qualification testing in an agile software development environment
• Works closely with AI Systems Engineers to understand program intent, system capabilities, and output requirements. 
• May design software-systems, applications, and data architectures that directly implement AI techniques to support achieving better reliability, precision, accuracy, and speed to meet performance requirements.
Position Benefits:

As a full-time employee of Northrop Grumman Space Systems, you are eligible for our robust benefits package including:? 
•    Medical, Dental & Vision coverage? 
•    401k? 
•    Educational Assistance? 
•    Life Insurance? 
•    Employee Assistance Programs & Work/Life Solutions ? 
•    Paid Time Off ? 
•    Health & Wellness Resources ? 
•    Employee Discounts? 
This position’s standard work schedule is a 9/80. The 9/80 schedule allows employees who work a nine-hour day Monday through Thursday to take every other Friday off.  This role may offer a competitive relocation assistance package.

Basic Qualifications:

•    Principal Engineer Software: 05 Years with Bachelors in relevant field of study; 03 Years with Masters; 00 Years with PhD or 04 additional years in lieu of a degree. 
Senior Principal Engineer Software: 08 Years with Bachelors in relevant field of study; 03 Years with Masters; 00 Years with PhD or 04 additional years in lieu of a degree. 

•    Active DoD Secret clearance with a reinvestigation date occurring in the last 6 years.
•    U.S. Citizen and Ability to obtain Special Program Access (SAP).
•    Demonstrated proficiency in Python and JavaScript/TypeScript, with a strong track record of delivering production grade code and solving complex problems in both languages.
•    Familiarity in working with locally hosted large language models, including hands on experience deploying and optimizing frameworks such as Ollama and Llama?CPP
•    Familiarity with leading AI service APIs, including practical experience integrating, prompting, and fine tuning solutions built on OpenAI?ChatGPT, Anthropic?Claude, and Google?Gemini.
•    Familiarity with building agentic AI solutions using frameworks such as LangChain, LangGraph, or comparable libraries.

Preferred Qualifications:

•    Proficiency with Node.js for backend development and React for building modern, responsive user interfaces.
•    Experience integrating multi modal large language models (e.g., vision language, audio text) to enable richer AI interactions.
•    Experience designing and optimizing Retrieval Augmented Generation pipelines and building agentic orchestrators to coordinate complex AI workflows.
•    Demonstrated first principles thinking with a proven ability to break down complex problems into fundamental components and devise original, robust solutions
•    Experience with graph database technologies such as Neo4j (or comparable platforms), fluency in Cypher queries, and practical knowledge of graph neural network methods
•    Demonstrated research mindset with the ability to translate cutting edge findings into practical, deployable solutions that deliver measurable business impact.

#SentinelSoftware

Primary Level Salary Range: $98,400.00 - $147,600.00

Secondary Level Salary Range: $122,800.00 - $184,200.00

The above salary range represents a general guideline; however, Northrop Grumman considers a number of factors when determining base salary offers such as the scope and responsibilities of the position and the candidate's experience, education, skills and current market conditions.

Depending on the position, employees may be eligible for overtime, shift differential, and a discretionary bonus in addition to base pay. Annual bonuses are designed to reward individual contributions as well as allow employees to share in company results. Employees in Vice President or Director positions may be eligible for Long Term Incentives. In addition, Northrop Grumman provides a variety of benefits including health insurance coverage, life and disability insurance, savings plan, Company paid holidays and paid time off (PTO) for vacation and/or personal business.

The application period for the job is estimated to be 20 days from the job posting date. However, this timeline may be shortened or extended depending on business needs and the availability of qualified candidates.

Northrop Grumman is an Equal Opportunity Employer, making decisions without regard to race, color, religion, creed, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, marital status, national origin, age, veteran status, disability, or any other protected class. For our complete EEO and pay transparency statement, please visit http://www.northropgrumman.com/EEO. U.S. Citizenship is required for all positions with a government clearance and certain other restricted positions.