Sr Principal Software Engineer - AI Software

About the role

The Senior Principal Software Engineer – AI Software role at Northrop Grumnan Aeronautics Systems is located on-site in San Diego, El Segundo, or Palmdale, California. This position requires a self-motivated professional with proven experience collaborating in cross-functional teams. The role demands strong interpersonal skills, the ability to influence stakeholders, and a proven track record of delivering results in highly regulated, high clearance environments.

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 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)

Qualifications

• Current applicable Special Access Program (SAP/PAR) 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
• 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

• Strong interpersonal skills
• Ability to influence stakeholders
• Proven track record of delivering results in highly regulated, high clearance environments
• Technical leadership (leading designs, mentoring engineers, driving cross-team technical alignment)
• Active U.S. Government Top Secret clearance

Benefits

• Health insurance coverage
• Life and disability insurance
• Savings plan
• Company paid holidays and paid time off (vacation and/or personal business)

Pay

$142,200.00 - $213,400.00

Schedule

Full-time on-site at our San Diego, El Segundo or Palmdale facility; travel of up to 25% may be required.