Sr Principal Software Engineer - AI Software

About the role

Northrop Grumman Aeronautics Systems is seeking a Senior Principal Software Engineer – AI Software to join our onsite team on site in San Diego, El Segundo or Palmdale, California.

Responsibilities

• Provide collaborative technical leadership that drives the maturation of Artificial Intelligence solutions across a portfolio of contracts and operating units
• Partner with product, platform, data, security, and compliance to establish responsible AI practices, model governance, and enterprise-grade MLOps
• Act as the Subject Matter Expert for all aspects of the enterprise Artificial Intelligence roadmap and execution
• Provide senior technical leadership through design reviews, prototyping, code contributions, and mentoring while aligning roadmaps across teams

Requirements

• Bachelor’s Degree in a STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering or Mathematics) discipline with 8 years of related engineering experience; OR a Master’s degree in a STEM discipline with 6 years of related engineering experience; OR a PhD in a STEM discipline with 4 years of related engineering experience.
• Professional software engineering experience building and delivering production software (e.g., Python, Java, C++, or similar).
• Applied AI/ML engineering experience delivering models to production (classical ML and/or deep learning, including LLM-enabled solutions).
• Experience integrating AI/ML capabilities into enterprise software systems (APIs/services, data pipelines, and production deployment patterns).
• Experience working in regulated environments with strong emphasis on security, data handling, and governance expectations for AI use.
• Demonstrated technical leadership (leading designs, mentoring engineers, driving cross-team technical alignment).
• Active U.S. Government Top Secret clearance (with a background investigation within the past 5 years or enrolled into Continuous Evaluation).
• Ability to obtain and maintain initial Special Program Access (SAP/PAR).

Qualifications

• Current applicable Special Access Program (SAP) clearance.
• Advanced degree (MS/PhD) in Machine Learning, Computer Science, or related field.
• Experience with modern software practices: version control, code reviews, automated testing, CI/CD, and containerized deployment.
• Working knowledge of MLOps fundamentals (model evaluation, reproducibility, monitoring/observability, model lifecycle).
• Experience leading AI technical strategy/roadmaps for a program or product; influencing stakeholders across software, systems, and program leadership.
• Deep experience with LLM solutions, including retrieval-augmented generation (RAG), evaluation/guardrails, and enterprise-ready integration.
• Strong MLOps experience (pipelines/orchestration, experiment tracking, model registry, automated retraining, drift detection).
• Experience scaling AI systems for reliability/performance (latency/cost optimization, GPU utilization, autoscaling, canary/A/B deployments).
• Experience with secure DevSecOps practices and supply-chain security for software and ML artifacts.
• Familiarity with enterprise AI governance and responsible-use expectations, including alignment to company AI governance procedures.

Skills

• Current applicable Special Access Program (SAP) clearance.
• Advanced degree (MS/PhD) in Machine Learning, Computer Science, or related field.
• Experience with modern software practices: version control, code reviews, automated testing, CI/CD, and containerized deployment.
• Working knowledge of MLOps fundamentals (model evaluation, reproducibility, monitoring/observability, model lifecycle).
• Experience leading AI technical strategy/roadmaps for a program or product; influencing stakeholders across software, systems, and program leadership.
• Deep experience with LLM solutions, including retrieval-augmented generation (RAG), evaluation/guardrails, and enterprise-ready integration.
• Strong MLOps experience (pipelines/orchestration, experiment tracking, model registry, automated retraining, drift detection).
• Experience scaling AI systems for reliability/performance (latency/cost optimization, GPU utilization, autoscaling, canary/A/B deployments).
• Experience with secure DevSecOps practices and supply-chain security for software and ML artifacts.
• Familiarity with enterprise AI governance and responsible-use expectations, including alignment to company AI governance procedures.

Benefits

Northrop Grumman is an Equal Opportunity Employer, making decisions without regard to race, color, religion, creed, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, marital status, national origin, age, veteran status, disability, or any other protected class. For our complete EEO and pay transparency statement, please visit http://www.northropgrumman.com/EEO.

Pay

Primary Level Salary Range: $142,200.00 - $213,400.00

Schedule

The selected candidate will work full time on site at our San Diego, El Segundo or Palmdale facility; remote, hybrid, or telework options are not available for this position. Travel of up to 25% may be required.