RELOCATION ASSISTANCE: Relocation assistance may be available
CLEARANCE REQUIRED FOR START: Yes
CLEARANCE TYPE: Secret
TRAVEL: Yes, 25% of the Time
DescriptionNorthrop Grumman Fellows are recognized experts who tackle the hardest technical problems and ensure we retain the hard-won insights needed to perform complex missions successfully. They define what is possible in our most critical capability areas while identifying and cultivating the people, processes, and tools required for enduring technical advantage. Fellows are deployed against our most important programs and captures, aligned to top business priorities, and advance our products and solutions to meet customers’ missions every day.
Northrop Grumman Space Systems is seeking an NG Fellow 1 – Software Architect for Weapons Systems to support the Weapons Prime Strategic initiative for LED. This position is located in Chandler, Arizona and reports to the GNC/SW engineering director.
The ideal candidate will set and drive strategy for a broad set of weapon-system software architecture initiatives and will be empowered to shape technical direction across mission software frameworks, real-time computing platforms, hardware-software integration, open-architecture implementations, and digital-engineering-enabled software development approaches. The Fellow is expected to provide scientific, technical, and intellectual leadership that improves capture success, product differentiation, and long-range mission effectiveness in alignment with the LED strategic plan.
This leader must have a strong grasp of campaign execution and networking strategy and possess the skills, drive, and judgment to successfully interface with senior leaders, chief engineers, program teams, software organizations, and customer stakeholders. The role is expected to bridge operational mission needs with robust, safety-critical, cyber-resilient software architectures that can be implemented, verified, fielded, and sustained across advanced defense platforms.
Key Responsibilities
Strategic & Technical Leadership
- Serve as a sector-level technical authority for software architecture supporting advanced weapons, missile systems, guidance applications, and mission-critical defense platforms.
- Define and influence long-term technical roadmaps for software frameworks, interface architectures, data models, real-time execution approaches, modular reuse, and digital engineering practices across the relevant portfolio.
- Drive technical strategy, trades, and risk-reduction plans across the engineering lifecycle—from concept exploration through design, development, integration, verification, test, certification, and fielding support.
- Provide technical leadership on critical programs and captures, including solution development, technical differentiation, architecture maturity, and alignment to customer mission needs.
- Establish and champion best practices for translating operational and systems-level requirements into robust software blueprints, interface definitions, integration strategies, and implementation patterns for mission-critical environments.
- Lead trade studies on open architecture, software partitioning, latency, scalability, cybersecurity, fault tolerance, processor utilization, and lifecycle affordability in operationally relevant environments.
Organizational & People Leadership
- Lead through influence across software, systems, hardware, integration, cybersecurity, and mission engineering organizations, aligning technical direction with LED strategy and growth objectives.
- Mentor chief engineers, IPT leads, and senior technical staff in software architecture, interface design, hardware-software integration, real-time implementation methods, and digital engineering practices.
- Drive adoption of rigorous engineering, reuse, and verification methods that improve solution quality, mission performance, resiliency, and affordability.
- Engage regularly with senior leadership and customers to present architecture concepts, technical risks, trade studies, mitigations, and recommendations in a clear and compelling manner.
Technical Skills and Core Competencies
- Deep experience in software architecture for mission-critical, software-intensive defense systems, including real-time or embedded applications supporting weapons, guidance, command-and-control, or related aerospace platforms.
- Demonstrated experience translating mission and operational needs into scalable software frameworks, APIs, interface contracts, and data models that support complex multi-disciplinary systems.
- Strong background in real-time operating systems, deterministic software behavior, timing and latency management, hardware abstraction, and software-hardware integration for safety-critical environments.
- Broad systems engineering and technical oversight experience across complex, multi-discipline defense systems.
- Experience designing, researching, and developing advanced technical solutions that result in differentiated product and business opportunities.
- Proficiency in open architecture and modular design approaches, including standards such as Weapon Open System Architecture (WOSA) or comparable modular defense frameworks.
- Experience with software verification strategies, hardware-in-the-loop integration, and development practices aligned with mission assurance, safety, and cybersecurity objectives.
- Working knowledge of MBSE and digital engineering practices, along with requirements and architecture tools such as DOORS, Cameo, SysML, DoDAF, or comparable toolsets.
Basic Qualifications
- Bachelors, Master’s, and/or PhD in a relevant STEM degree and robust industry related experience; 20 years of experience with a BS or 18 years of experience with an MS or PhD.
- Active U.S. Government Secret security clearance at time of application, with the capability to obtain TS/SCI clearance.
- Demonstrated experience architecting software for real-time, embedded, or mission-critical aerospace and defense systems.
- Demonstrated experience with systems engineering and verification activities spanning requirements development, architecture definition, integration, test, and fielding support for complex development efforts.
- Experience working closely with IPT Leads, Chief Engineers, and program leadership on complex development efforts.
- Ability to support strategic initiatives and captures tied to portfolio growth objectives.
Preferred Qualifications
- Advanced degree in Engineering, Computer Science, Software Engineering, Applied Mathematics, Physics, or a related technical discipline.
- Experience with weapon-system software architectures supporting guidance, mission management, sensor integration, or fire-control-related applications.
- Experience implementing safety-critical software practices and working knowledge of standards such as DO-178C or comparable aerospace and defense development guidance.
- Experience with modeling and simulation environments used to assess architecture performance, latency, scalability, fault tolerance, and robustness in representative mission conditions.
- Experience and proficiency with Agile principles, processes, and tools; Model-Based Systems Engineering (MBSE); and verification environments such as software-in-the-loop, hardware-in-the-loop, or comparable test frameworks.
- Track record of contributing to or leading successful captures and proposals for advanced weapon-system programs.
Primary Level Salary Range: $189,400.00 - $284,000.00
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.
