Software Engineer (Level 4) - AHT

About the role

Northrop Grumman's Space Sector is seeking a Software Engineer (Level 4) to join the Western Region Software Engineering directorate. This position is located onsite in Redondo Beach, CA. 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.

Responsibilities

• Work in an agile or iterative development environment and collaborate with cross-functional teams (systems engineers, DevOps, test, data engineers)
• Maintain a strong focus on software quality, including unit testing, integration testing, code reviews, and use of test frameworks (e.g., JUnit, pytest, GoogleTest, TestComplete)
• 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
• Participate in code reviews, test automation efforts, and continuous improvement of development and integration practices
• Troubleshoot and resolve issues across application, container, and cloud layers
• Demonstrate strong problem-solving, debugging, and communication skills

Basic Qualifications

• 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 or Python
• Hands-on experience designing and developing containerized applications (e.g., Docker) for deployment to a private cloud environment
• Practical experience integrating applications with Apache Kafka or other distributed messaging/streaming platforms (producers, consumers, topics, partitions, consumer groups)
• Experience building RESTful APIs and/or microservices that integrate with backend data sources
• Proficiency with Linux environments and shell scripting
• Experience with build tools (e.g., Maven/Gradle for Java, CMake for C++, or equivalent)
• Familiarity with source control and branching strategies (Git, Git workflows)
• Understanding of secure coding practices and basic cloud security concepts (authentication/authorization, secrets management, TLS)

Preferred Qualifications

• Active U.S. Government Top Secret/SCI clearance
• Experience with mission-critical or real-time systems, ideally in space mission planning domains
• Experience designing event-driven architectures using Kafka (schema design, message contracts, error handling, replay patterns, stream processing)
• Hands-on experience with at least one major cloud provider (AWS, Azure, GCP) or an equivalent internal cloud platform (networking, storage, IAM, logging, monitoring)
• Background in microservices architecture and patterns (service discovery, configuration management, circuit breakers, API gateways)
• Exposure to data streaming/processing frameworks (Kafka Streams, NATS, ActiveMQ, or similar)
• Knowledge of software design patterns and modern architectural practices
• Experience working in multidisciplinary engineering teams supporting large system integrations
• Experience developing clean, secure code (e.g., Sonar scans, unit tests, code coverage, Fortify)
• Experience with container orchestration platforms (preferably Kubernetes, OpenShift, or similar)

Pay & schedule

• Salary range: $142,200.00 – $213,400.00 (base salary offers consider scope, responsibilities, experience, education, skills, and market conditions)
• Employees may be eligible for overtime, shift differential, and a discretionary bonus in addition to base pay
• Annual bonuses designed to reward individual contributions and allow employees to share in company results
• Employees in Vice President or Director positions may be eligible for Long Term Incentives
• Flexible schedules available, including the ability to work a 9/80 work schedule (nine-hour day Monday through Thursday with every other Friday off)
• Travel: Yes, 10% of the time
• Relocation assistance may be available

Benefits

• Medical, Dental & Vision coverage
• 401k
• Educational Assistance
• Life Insurance
• Employee Assistance Programs & Work/Life Solutions
• Paid Time Off
• Health & Wellness Resources
• Employee Discounts
• Company paid holidays