Software System Engineer (Level 4) - AHT

RELOCATION ASSISTANCE:
Relocation assistance may be available

CLEARANCE REQUIRED FOR START:
Yes

CLEARANCE TYPE:
Top 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.

• Please be aware that this position is contingent upon capturing program award(s) and obtaining and maintaining associated business and/or customer funding. Furthermore, this position is contingent upon the candidate obtaining final clearances and program access(es) within a reasonable period of time as determined by the company. Continued employment thereafter will be subject to maintenance at the level of clearance and program access required for the position in the future.

• Perform a combination of tasks including software development, systems engineering, and occasional Scrum Master duties.
• Design, implement, and integrate containerized software components for a space mission planning system.
• Integrate mission planning services with Kafka-based backend data streams, ensuring reliability and scalability.
• Collaborate with systems engineers to understand mission planning requirements and translate them into robust software solutions.
• Implement and maintain cloud-deployed services, including monitoring, logging, and alerting.
• Drive software quality through unit and integration testing, code reviews, test automation, and the use of test frameworks (e.g., JUnit, pytest, Google Test, Test Complete).
• Troubleshoot and resolve issues across application, container, and cloud layers.
• Apply a solid understanding of distributed systems concepts, including scalability, resiliency, fault tolerance, and observability.
• Apply secure coding practices and basic cloud security concepts (authentication/authorization, secrets management, TLS).
• Use source control and branching strategies (Git, Git workflows).
• Demonstrate strong problem-solving, debugging, and communication skills.

• Bachelor’s degree in a STEM discipline with 8+ years of software engineering experience, or a Master’s degree in a STEM discipline with 6+ years of experience, or a Ph.D. in a STEM discipline with 4+ years of relevant experience.
• Must have an active U.S. Government Top Secret clearance at the time of application, with the ability to obtain Special Program Access within a reasonable period of time as determined by the company.
• Strong programming skills in at least one of the following:
  Java, Python, or C++; ability to read and debug the others is a plus.
• Hands-on experience designing and developing containerized applications (e.g., Docker) for deployment to a private cloud environment.
• Experience with container orchestration platforms (preferably Kubernetes, Open Shift, or similar).
• Practical experience integrating applications with Apache Kafka or other distributed messaging/streaming platforms (producers, consumers, topics, partitions, consumer groups).
• Proficiency with Linux environments and shell scripting.
• Experience with build tools (e.g., Maven/Gradle for Java, CMake for C++, or equivalent).
• Experience in systems engineering for distributed…