Principal AI Engineer Software
Northrop Grumman2 days ago
San Diego, CA, USAStaff+
Base Salary
$138k - $207k/yr
Responsibilities
- Design, develop, integrate, and sustain AI-enabled software products across cloud and local or on-premises environments.
- Translate mission, customer, and business needs into secure, scalable, and maintainable technical solutions.
- Identify system, workflow, and architecture gaps and develop improvements to performance, reliability, security, and efficiency.
- Secure and harden full-stack solutions spanning infrastructure, platforms, applications, data flows, and development pipelines.
- Evaluate and incorporate open-source technologies, frameworks, models, and tooling in secure and supportable ways.
- Lead technical efforts across software, cyber, networking, DevOps, and systems engineering disciplines.
- Perform technical trade studies, solution analysis, and architectural assessments.
- Communicate technical approaches, risks, status, and results to leadership and stakeholders.
- Mentor engineers and support technical growth across the team.
- Incorporate emerging research, tools, and engineering practices into practical solutions that provide measurable value.
Requirements
- Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, or a related STEM discipline with 5 years of relevant experience; alternatively, 3 years with a master’s degree or 1 year with a PhD.
- Current DoD 8570 IAT Level II certification (Security+) or higher.
- U.S. citizenship and a current or active DoD Secret clearance.
- Experience developing or deploying AI/ML-enabled applications for practical or operational use cases.
- Experience leading technical efforts across multiple engineering disciplines and guiding implementation teams.
- Ability to determine when AI is not the appropriate solution and propose an alternative engineering approach.
- Experience securing end-to-end systems across infrastructure, applications, data, interfaces, and deployment pipelines.
- Working knowledge of cyber security, networking, DevOps, systems engineering, or platform engineering.
- Experience with modern software delivery practices, automation, infrastructure or platform operations, and secure use of open-source technologies.
- Experience influencing technical direction, presenting to senior leadership, mentoring engineers, and delivering measurable mission or business value.
- Preferred experience with GPU optimization, distributed inference, constrained compute environments, end-to-end AI integration, and secure or regulated environments.
Benefits
- Health insurance, life insurance, disability insurance, savings plan, company-paid holidays, and paid time off.
- Base salary range of $137,800.00 to $206,800.00, with potential overtime, shift differential, and discretionary bonus eligibility.
- On-site work at Spectrum Center in San Diego; travel is approximately 10% of the time.
- No relocation assistance is available.
- The position requires an active Secret clearance at start; no clearance is required for start according to the posting while the qualifications also specify a current or active DoD Secret clearance.
Categories
About Northrop Grumman
Northrop Grumman designs and manufactures aircraft, spacecraft, missile defense, C4ISR, and cyber systems for the U.S. government, NASA, and allied nations. The company operates primarily through long-term defense and space contracts, delivering products and services spanning autonomous systems, sensors, software, and sustainment. Founded in 1994 and headquartered in Falls Church, Virginia, it is a public company listed on the NYSE (ticker: NOC).