Optical Engineer

RELOCATION ASSISTANCE:
Relocation assistance may be available

CLEARANCE REQUIRED FOR START:
Yes

CLEARANCE TYPE:
Secret

TRAVEL:
Yes, 10% of the Time

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.

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.

Northrop Grumman Space Systems is looking for a Staff Optical Engineer to support the Electro‑Optics Group within the Launch Vehicles business unit in Chandler, Arizona.

You will work as part of a multi‑disciplinary seeker engineering team responsible for optical design, analysis, integration, and test of development and flight hardware. The role is centered on optical engineering for imaging and sensing systems (visible through LWIR), with an emphasis on how opto‑mechanical design and environments drive optical performance. At the staff level, you will provide technical leadership, develop and implement new tools and methods, and ensure system‑level performance across the full mission profile.

• Lead and contribute to the design and analysis of optical systems for imaging and sensing applications (e.g., refractive/reflective optics, relay optics, athermalized systems, objective lenses).
• Perform and own optical performance analyses (e.g., wavefront error, MTF, line of sight (LOS) stability, boresight, sensitivity, and tolerancing) across expected environmental and operational conditions, with a high degree of self-checking.
• Develop and maintain optical error budgets, including contributions from alignment, manufacturing tolerances, thermal and structural effects, and line of sight stability; review others’ work for accuracy and consistency.
• Perform and guide Structurally Induced Line of Sight (SILOS) analysis in collaboration with structural and thermal analysts to ensure optical performance is maintained through the full mission profile; drive system level solutions to optical structural thermal interactions.
• Define and allocate optical requirements and tolerances at the system, subsystem, and component levels; flow requirements to optomechanical design, manufacturing, and test, ensuring system level compliance.
• Collaborate closely with opto‑mechanical, systems, electrical, and manufacturing engineers to ensure that optical designs are realizable, producible, and…