Northrop Grumman Aerospace Systems Sector has an opening for a Staff Software Engineer. This Architect will lead technical efforts supporting capture and strategy for a key and critical program. This position will support a 9/80 schedule and is based in Melbourne, FL and will be primarily based on site within our office spaces to support the program and business needs. The position does not have remote or Hybrid work available.
This position will be supporting capture and strategy for a key and critical program. This candidate will closely work with business development, business directors, external customers, and external subject matter experts to shape the feasibility of new missions and architectures. This candidate will closely work with business development, business directors, external customers, and external subject matter experts to shape the feasibility of new missions and architectures.
Essential Functions:
We are seeking a talented and highly motivated software architect with experience in communicating with customers, stakeholders, software developers, system engineers, and senior leadership to collect mission requirements, describe software product features, technical designs, develop feature roadmaps, and product strategy. Job includes shaping the long-term technical strategy to evolve and deliver software architecture to enable various DoD missions. Lead mission decomposition into functions, requirements, interface definitions that can be implemented by software developers. Ensure the software architecture remains aligned with Government Reference Architectures (GRAs).
Basic Qualifications:
Staff Software Architect (T05): Bachelor’s Degree in a Science, Technology, Engineering or Mathematics (STEM) discipline and at least 12 years’ experience, or STEM master’s degree with 10 years’ experience, or a STEM PHD with 8 years’ engineering experience.
This position requires the ability to obtain and maintain a DoD Top Secret clearance as well as Program Special Access within a reasonable amount of time as determined by the company to meet its business needs
Contingency: This position is contingent upon ability to obtain a DoD Top Secret Clearance, can start with interim Top Secret
Experience with Agile best practices and processes; tasking, accountability, interception, process enforcement
Experience designing and architecting on-board mission system software ensuring portability, modularity, adaptability, and scalability.
Knowledge of engineering practices and patterns for the full software/hardware/network development life cycle, including coding standards, code reviews, source control management, build processes, testing, and V&V
Experience designing micro-service based containerized software using open standards
Preferred Qualifications:
Experience with capture activities, including RFI/RFP preparation, customer presentations and demonstrations, and competitor analysis
Experience with Government Reference Architectures like DoDAF, MOSA, OMS, FACE, and/or UCI.
Comms and RF Systems Experience
Experience designing or architecting (design patterns, scaling) operational user experiences
Systems Engineering and Cameo Modeling
Experience collecting and analyzing CPU throughput utilization, data bus bandwidth utilization, and CPU memory utilization statistics
Experience integrating sensors and payloads from suppliers.
Skills Required
- STEM degree (BS/MS/PhD) with minimum relevant experience (BS +12 years, MS +10 years, PhD +8 years).
- Ability to obtain and maintain a DoD Top Secret clearance and Program Special Access (position contingent on obtaining clearance; interim Top Secret acceptable to start).
- Experience with Agile best practices and processes including tasking, accountability, and process enforcement.
- Experience designing and architecting on-board mission system software ensuring portability, modularity, adaptability, and scalability.
- Knowledge of engineering practices and patterns across software/hardware/network lifecycle including coding standards, code reviews, source control, build processes, testing, and verification & validation (V&V).
- Experience designing micro-service based containerized software using open standards.
- Experience with capture activities (RFI/RFP prep, customer presentations, demos, competitor analysis).
- Familiarity with Government Reference Architectures (DoDAF, MOSA, OMS, FACE, UCI).
- Communications and RF systems experience.
- Experience designing or architecting operational user experiences.
- Systems engineering and Cameo modeling experience.
- Experience collecting and analyzing CPU throughput, data bus bandwidth, and memory utilization statistics.
- Experience integrating sensors and payloads from suppliers.
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.









