Northrop Grumman Space Systems is currently seeking a Principal Electrical Engineer III in our Chandler, AZ facility.
The Chandler group performs cradle-to-grave engineering on the majority of their launch vehicles. They are working on approximately 15 separate vehicles at any given time, among them are GPI, Antares, Minotaur, Pegasus, GMD, Sentinel, and many more.
Their products serve a variety of purposes including ISS (International Space Station) cargo resupply, deploying defense satellites, developing missile interceptor technology, and providing much needed target vehicles to better hone our military capability.
This means you can be part of the design, operations planning, ground support development, analysis, testing, integration, launch operations and more. There is plenty to do and learn that will reinforce your existing skillsets while also helping you learn what it takes to get a rocket to lift off and achieve orbit. Our department has a good variety of sub-groups to choose from where you can roll up your sleeves to become an industry expert or opt to pursue a more well-rounded approach while learning a little about everything.
Job Duties:
- Based on specific objectives, perform analysis, design, and/or test of complex designs.
- Perform comprehensive review of internal, external, industry, customer, and range requirements to support system and subsystem designs.
- Perform detailed analyses to support/verify designs and conduct briefings to management and customers.
- Lead development, coordination, and execution of test programs required to evaluate the design.
- Lead troubleshooting efforts and comprehensive failure investigations.
- Mentor other engineers from a technical standpoint as well as perform senior peer review.
- Collaborate early and often with other IPTs, engineering disciplines and operations/manufacturing groups.
Job responsibilities:
- Broad understanding and application of industry and company electrical engineering technical standards.
- Broad technical expertise and working knowledge of other related disciplines.
- Prepares and presents electrical engineering materials for Requirements and Design Reviews.
- Perform qualification acceptance testing, characterization testing, troubleshooting, and test data review of completed complex system designs.
- Perform data analysis to identify trends that may indicate out of tolerance or degraded part performance.
- Perform testing to characterize off-nominal behavior of components.
- Actively and effectively participates and contributes in a positive manner while supporting team decisions and goals.
- Makes an extra effort to provide quality internal and external customer service.
- Constantly seeks new sources of information and provides information necessary to meet customer needs.
- Disciplined with escalation when required.
- Derives and decomposes requirements through multiple sources of documentation and design meetings.
- Evaluate uncertainty and risks associated with requirements and designs.
- Participates in trade studies for both internal projects and procured equipment.
- Act with safety as your number one priority through every aspect of the role.
- Provides formal peer review of engineering designs or analyses for team members.
Basic Qualifications
- BS in Electrical Engineering and 5 Years' Experience or 3 years Experience with Masters
- U.S. Citizenship is required
- Must have a current U.S. Government Secret Security clearance or higher at time of application
Preferred Qualifications
- Experience with missile systems and associated standards
- Prior experience with the design, test, and/or integration and deployment of electrical components or subsystems
- Release of engineering documentation including technical drawings, specifications, and test procedures.
- Burndown of nonconformances and/or root cause failure analysis of electronic systems.
- Evaluate uncertainty and risks associated with requirements and designs.
- Derives and decomposes requirements through multiple sources of documentation and design meetings.
- Problem solving not only for technical issues, but also for schedule, cost, resource and other project challenges.
- Mentoring and cross-training team members across a diverse set of technologies and electrical system architectures used to meet customer requirements.
- Knowledgeable with the use of basic test equipment such as power supplies, oscilloscopes, DMMs, and electronic loads.
- Experience using analytical software tools, such as MATLAB or Python, to analyze and reduce data to identify key characteristics and trends.
Skills Required
- BS in Electrical Engineering and 5 years' experience (or MS and 3 years' experience)
- U.S. Citizenship
- Current U.S. Government Secret security clearance or higher at time of application
- Experience performing analysis, design, and test of complex electrical system designs
- Experience with missile systems and associated standards
- Design, test, integration, and deployment of electrical components or subsystems
- Release of engineering documentation including technical drawings, specifications, and test procedures
- Burndown of nonconformances and/or root cause failure analysis of electronic systems
- Mentoring and cross-training team members across diverse electrical system architectures
- Knowledgeable with use of basic test equipment: power supplies, oscilloscopes, DMMs, electronic loads
- Experience using analytical software tools such as MATLAB or Python to analyze and reduce test data
Northrop Grumman Compensation & Benefits Highlights
The following summarizes recurring compensation and benefits themes identified from responses generated by popular LLMs to common candidate questions about Northrop Grumman and has not been reviewed or approved by Northrop Grumman.
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Retirement Support — 401(k) matching is considered strong, with additional defined-benefit coverage for certain cohorts and options like catch-up contributions. Retirement programs are repeatedly highlighted as a core strength of the total rewards.
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Leave & Time Off Breadth — PTO, company-paid holidays, and compressed work schedules (such as 9/80) provide meaningful time away and flexibility. These scheduling options are cited as a major quality-of-life benefit across many locations.
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Parental & Family Support — Paid parental leave alongside caregiver leave, adoption assistance, and back-up care supports a range of family needs. These programs have been expanded recently, signaling continued investment in family support.
Northrop Grumman Insights
What We Do
We are a close-knit community of big thinkers collaborating to keep the world safe. Our passion, creativity and expertise bring next-level technology solutions to life in autonomous systems, cyber, C4ISR, strike, space, and logistics and modernization for our customers around the globe. On the Northrop Grumman team, you’ll join our pursuit of excellence immersed in a dynamic culture of innovation and respect. Your unique perspective will help achieve our shared vision for the future of global security. Every step of the way, you'll be supported by world-class training, employee resource groups and a comprehensive benefits package that enables greater health and happiness for you and your family. Worldwide and across disciplines, we’re challenging what’s possible for technology to protect people and places from undersea to outer space and into cyberspace. And we see the impact of our performance every day. We are Northrop Grumman, and we work on what matters—now, you too can make a difference. Explore opportunities in engineering, IT, manufacturing, business management, cybersecurity and more with us. Northrop Grumman is committed to hiring and retaining a diverse workforce. We are proud to be an Equal Opportunity/Affirmative Action Employer.








