Principal/Sr. Principal Dedicated Cloud Engineer

Northrop Grumman•Niceville, FL

8d•$98,400 - $193,900

About The Position

Northrop Grumman Defense Systems (NGDS) is seeking a Dedicated Cloud Engineer to support DAF CLOUDworks, a rapidly growing secure cloud program that encompasses 10+ teams across information security, infrastructure development, and cloud migration. You will work directly with DAF CLOUDworks mission partners to rapidly enable required application functionality and evolve secure cloud offerings—implementing new requirements, enhancing functionality, increasing efficiency, and reducing operating/deployment costs. Successful candidates will be strong communicators and problem solvers who build and maintain effective working relationships with internal and external stakeholders.

Requirements

High school diploma with 9+ years of relevant experience OR bachelor’s degree with 5+ years of relevant experience OR master’s degree with 3+ years of relevant experience (for Principal Engineer - Level 3)
High school diploma with 12+ years of relevant experience OR bachelor’s degree with 8+ years of relevant experience OR master’s degree with 6+ years of relevant experience (for Sr. Principal Engineer - Level 4)
Active Top Secret clearance with Sensitive Compartmented Information (TS/SCI)
Ability to obtain IAT Level II certification per DoD 8570.01 (such as CASP+ or Security+) within 60 days of start date
Technical knowledge of infrastructure components, including: Network, Storage, Linux/Windows, IT security concepts
Working knowledge and/or familiarity with cloud‑based technologies, such as: AWS Platform, Azure Platform, Google Cloud Platform
Experience with Kustomize and Helm
Experience with Linux
Experience with GitOps and CI/CD, with an emphasis on GitLab
Experience in application deployment and release management
Experience with containerization technologies (e.g., Docker, Kubernetes, OpenShift)
Experience with CI/CD tools (e.g., Jenkins, GitLab CI, CircleCI, ArgoCD)
Experience with Infrastructure as Code (IaC) using Terraform, Ansible, or similar tools
Experience with monitoring and logging tools (e.g., Prometheus, Grafana, ELK stack)
Proficiency in at least one scripting language (Python, Bash)
Strong understanding of application deployment strategies (e.g., blue/green, canary)

Nice To Haves

Experience with microservice orchestration, with a strong focus on Kubernetes
Fundamental cloud certifications such as: AWS Cloud Practitioner (or higher), Azure Fundamentals (or higher)
Experience with advanced application and network troubleshooting, database administration, and PKI management
Experience with cloud providers, with an emphasis on AWS services
Experience with Agile methodologies
Experience with various forms of automation, including: Batch scripting, Pipeline automation, Kubernetes operators, Infrastructure‑as‑code (e.g., Terraform, Ansible)
Experience with cloud‑native application architectures
Experience with service mesh technologies (e.g., Istio, Linkerd)
Experience with security scanning and vulnerability management tools
Experience with platform engineering concepts

Responsibilities

Work side‑by‑side with mission partners to enable and deploy cloud‑hosted applications and services.
Design, implement, and support solutions in Kubernetes‑centric, cloud environments.
Automate deployment, configuration, and monitoring using GitOps and CI/CD pipelines.
Integrate and manage infrastructure components including networking, storage, Linux/Windows hosts, and security controls.
Contribute to platform engineering efforts to improve reliability, scalability, and security across the DAF CLOUDworks environment.
Diagnose complex issues across applications, networks, containers, and cloud platforms, and drive them to resolution.