RELOCATION ASSISTANCE: Relocation assistance may be available

CLEARANCE REQUIRED FOR START: Yes

CLEARANCE TYPE: Secret

TRAVEL: Yes, 25% of the TimeDescription

Discipline Execution lead for Systems Engineering

The Sector Engineering organization (formerly Strategy & Engineering Excellence [S&EE]) enables continuously improving engineering execution and deploys strategy in close partnership with division-aligned engineering teams. We are a trusted partner in Engineering Discipline Execution, Technology Leadership, Engineering Strategy, Technical Talent, and Advanced Analytics. We create and deliver on initiatives that need a broad sector approach and scale outcomes achieved within a division to the sector. We define and enable commonality in tools and processes. We merge insights across engineering and other functional areas, unify the broad engineering team, and act on near-, mid-, and long-term plans to achieve our strategy.

The Discipline Execution lead for Systems Engineering directly reports to the Director of Engineering Discipline Execution. The role is responsible for seeking and defining commonality in systems engineering disciplines across the sector's sites, while enabling site specific approaches necessary for their technology areas. This critical role requires extensive collaboration across engineering disciplines of Systems Engineering, Cybersecurity, Software Engineering, Hardware or Design Engineering, Integration and Test Engineering, and more. The team is responsible for defining common tools, standards, processes, techniques, and oversight methods across sites. The Lead will understand positive and negative trends and create action plans for both. In conjunction with the Engineering Strategy team, the Engineering Discipline Execution team will collaborate on a future vision and employ near-, mid-, and long-term actions to achieve organizational objectives. The Lead will be responsible to source the necessary Systems Engineering talent for successful audits, independent review teams, root cause and corrective actions, and others. The Lead will also partner extensively with cross-functional organizations to target improvements that benefit overall business outcomes, e,g., Global Supply Chain, Manufacturing, Quality and Mission Assurance, Business Management, Program Management.

The Discipline Execution lead for Systems Engineering will lead a geographically distributed team of engineering professionals aligned across various organizations to accomplish the role. The Lead facilitates the deployment of long-term corporate, cross-sector, and intra-sector system engineering transformation efforts, with focus on continuous process improvement, guidance, coaching, and training.

Our ideal candidate understands various engineering lifecycles and has the strategic vision of how it could or should be, and pragmatically how to achieve the desired state. The preferred candidate will have a solid technical background, strategic mindset and ability to influence multiple levels of leadership and customers to drive cost, performance, schedule and improvement to innovate and execute engineering activities.

Specific Responsibilities include (but are not limited to):

Discipline Execution

• Ensure systems engineering organizations across the sector are operating with predictable, repeatable rigor.
• Perform analysis to understand process differences between sites and, in collaboration with site leaders, implement change that achieves commonality to achieve business outcomes.
• Define oversight methods (e.g., metrics).
• Implement methods to drive systems engineering program performance and engineering organizational performance across cost, schedule, technical, quality, critical skills and staff, and various other areas.

• Collaborate on engineering long-term vision and strategic alignment
• Execute strategy and collaborate with organizational peers to stay ahead of industry trends and opportunities for innovation and engineering differentiation
• Partner with division engineering teams to improve systems engineering competitiveness. Includes:
  • Leveraging sector reusable engineering assets (processes, guidance, tools, templates, and training) to design affordable systems at the speed of customer need
  • Providing support to program and product line teams through coaching and mentoring on the use of these sector assets
  • Partnering with other organizations to enhance systems engineering, mission engineering, digital design and product line engineering processes across programs
  • Partner with other organizations to establish metrics and other measures focused on execution
• Improving engineering through updated, automated, and efficient processes
• When required, act as a sector interface to corporate, cross-sector, and/or intra-sector teams.
• Foster collaboration through groups such as reusable asset authorities, advisory boards, communities of practice, and centers of excellence.

Process & Standards & Audits
• Leads team focused on systems engineering Principles and Operating Procedures (PrOP);
• Perform analysis on audit results to understand process gaps, process escapes, and implement plans to update processes and/or work with audited groups to rectify any issues

Cross-Functional Partnerships

• Partner with other functional organizations (manufacturing, supply chain, program management, etc.) to enable competitive engineering design and performance, including changes to engineering processes, tools, data, and workflows.
  • Coordinating technical SMEs to support critical program milestones such as System Requirements Reviews, Critical Design Reviews, Manufacturing Readiness Reviews, etc.
  • Coordinate technical SMEs across organizations in support of other key decision points (e.g. Non-Advocate Reviews, Independent Review Teams, audits/technical oversight, etc.)

Travel
• Position requires travel up to 25% of the time to support distributed team

Basic Qualifications:

• Bachelor's degree with minimum of 10 years of experience, or a master's degree with minimum 8 years of experience, or a PhD with minimum 6 years of experience in STEM related technical fields
• Good general knowledge of Northrop Grumman portfolio of products, technologies and customers
• Experience working across multiple lines of business and functional disciplines (e.g. manufacturing, supply chain, business management, strategy & business development)
• Demonstrated experience leading systems development across the product development lifecycle (from design - to - systems deployment), either as a lead systems engineer, chief engineer, product IPT leader or program manager
• Demonstrated ability to innovate while challenging traditional ways of doing business
• Demonstrated success in championing change within the organization to achieve competitive advantage for the business
• Technical experience in any combination of Systems, Software, Hardware, or Cybersecurity engineering within the aerospace & defense industry with direct and tangible Systems Engineering experience.
• Demonstrated knowledge of hiring, staffing, engineering metrics and training resources, processes, and tools
• Excellent verbal and written communication skills
• Strong project management skills
• Solid understanding of engineering process, including a working familiarity with ISO 9001, AS9100, and CMMI
• U.S. Citizenship is required
• A current/active DoD secret clearance is required with the ability to obtain Special Program Access (SAP)

Preferred Qualifications:

• Active Top-Secret Clearance or higher and the ability to obtain and maintain a TS/SCI and Special Access Clearance
• Strong experience in Systems Engineering
• Demonstrated ability to partner with other stakeholders to achieve an optimum balance between project-level execution and enterprise-level efficiencies that improve overall sector performance and competitiveness
• Ability to operate independently based on strategic objectives, work in a team environment, and collaborate across the corporation as required to accomplish team goals
• Proven success in creating and executing affordability initiatives
• Experience leading geographically dispersed functional teams, including team members working remotely
• Experience engaging with and briefing all levels of management - from CEO, to front-line leadership

Primary Level Salary Range: $184,300.00 - $289,600.00

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.