Sr. Systems Architect – System-of-Systems

RELOCATION ASSISTANCE:
Relocation assistance may be available

CLEARANCE REQUIRED FOR START:
Yes

CLEARANCE TYPE:
Top Secret

TRAVEL:
Yes, 50% 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.

We are seeking an experienced and mission-focused Sr. Staff Systems Architect – System-of-Systems to support, Neptune Phoenix, a complex defense program delivering next-generation technical collection capabilities to our customers. The successful candidate will serve as the lead architect for software-intensive, cloud-enabled hardware systems and will be responsible for defining, communicating, and guiding the end-to-end technical architecture across on-premises, tactical, and secure AWS cloud environments.

The Neptune Phoenix program provides sustainment for an existing prototype portfolio while driving development, production, and operational support for the next generation of technical collection capabilities. The team designs and integrates ground and platform-based collection systems built on Model-Based Systems Engineering (MBSE), open architectures, and open standards. The Sr. Staff Systems Architect will play a central role in shaping the system-of-systems architecture, ensuring interoperability across diverse hardware capabilities, and aligning technical solutions with evolving mission needs, performance objectives, and cyber-resilience requirements.

Essential Duties And Responsibilities

• Capture, derive, and decompose system-of-systems architecture from high-level Concepts of Operations (CONOPS) and Operations Concepts (OPSCON) and disseminate architectural guidance to multiple integrated teams to ensure alignment with the overarching architecture.
• Lead cross-project technical alignment, driving common architecture patterns, interfaces, and reusable design solutions across multiple projects and product lines.
• Create, evolve, and maintain system architecture artifacts, including system block diagrams, interface definitions, data flows, and common program design solutions using MBSE methods and tools.
• Evolve and enhance a customer’s suite of disparate capabilities into an integrated system of systems that satisfies current and emerging mission objectives for capability, availability, reliability, performance, and security.
• Partner with the Chief Engineer, program management, and engineering leads to define technical roadmaps, architectural trade spaces, and modernization strategies that balance mission effectiveness, cost, schedule, and risk. Support technical discussions with the customer, including presenting architecture options, trade studies, and technical decision packages.
• Guide technical implementation across software, custom mission hardware, cloud infrastructure, networking, and cybersecurity domains, ensuring architectural integrity and consistency with open architecture and open standards principles.
• Collaborate with Systems Engineering, Integration & Test, Software, Hardware, Cybersecurity, and Specialty Engineering teams to ensure design…