Principal/Sr Principal Infrastructure Engineer

Northrop Grumman • Dulles, VA

1d • $125,300 - $234,600 • Onsite

About The Position

Northrop Grumman is hiring a Principal/Senior Principal Infrastructure Engineer to join its Product Security Engineering team, supporting the secure development and operation of production infrastructure and software products for space systems. The position is 100% on-site in Dulles, Virginia, and requires an active Top Secret clearance and U.S. citizenship at the time of application. Travel is expected 10% of the time; relocation assistance may be available.

The engineer will help design, build, automate, secure, and sustain infrastructure and shared services used for mission-critical software development and operations. Working with infrastructure, software, DevOps, and cybersecurity engineers, the role supports reliable platforms, modernized engineering workflows, and systems that remain secure, resilient, and maintainable throughout their lifecycle.

The role covers production infrastructure across Windows, Linux, networking, and virtualization. It includes administration of identity and network services, server and VMware operations, Cisco infrastructure, automation and Infrastructure-as-Code practices, and monitoring and recovery capabilities. The engineer will also troubleshoot complex issues, perform root-cause analysis, and maintain architecture, standards, runbooks, and as-built documentation while advancing reliability, security, modernization, automation, and technical-debt reduction.

Requirements

• For Principal level: 5 years of experience with a bachelor's degree in science, 3 years with a master's degree, or 1 year with a Ph.D.; four additional years of experience may be considered in lieu of a degree.
• For Senior Principal level: 8 years of experience with a bachelor's degree in science, 6 years with a master's degree, or 4 years with a Ph.D.; four additional years of experience may be considered in lieu of a degree.
• U.S. citizenship and an active Top Secret security clearance at the time of application.
• Hands-on experience administering Windows Server environments and Microsoft Active Directory, including users and groups, Group Policy, domain services, permissions, authentication, and DNS.
• Experience deploying, configuring, patching, maintaining, and troubleshooting Windows and/or Linux servers in production or operational environments.
• Hands-on experience with TCP/IP networking, including DNS, VLANs, routing, switching, firewalls, and troubleshooting connectivity issues.
• Experience administering virtualized infrastructure using VMware vSphere/ESXi or a comparable enterprise virtualization platform.
• Experience with automation, scripting, or configuration-management technologies such as Ansible, PowerShell, Python, or Bash.
• Ability to troubleshoot complex infrastructure issues across operating systems, applications, identity services, networking, and virtualization; perform root-cause analysis; and drive problems to resolution.
• Ability to create and maintain technical documentation, including system configurations, operational procedures, architecture diagrams, and technical decisions.
• Strong written and verbal communication skills and ability to collaborate across functional engineering teams.

Nice To Haves

• Technical curiosity and continuous learning demonstrated through personal projects, home labs, open-source contributions, or similar hands-on efforts.
• Experience configuring and troubleshooting Cisco network infrastructure, including switches, VLANs, trunks, Layer 2/Layer 3 networking, access controls, and network segmentation.
• Experience administering VMware vSphere environments, including vCenter, ESXi hosts, virtual networking, templates, storage integration, high availability, and platform lifecycle management.
• Experience developing infrastructure automation or internal tooling using Ansible, PowerShell, Python, Bash, Go, or similar technologies.
• Experience building or maintaining CI/CD pipelines using Jenkins or GitLab CI.
• Experience applying Infrastructure-as-Code, Policy-as-Code, Configuration-as-Code, GitOps, or related automated infrastructure-management practices.
• Experience with security hardening, vulnerability remediation, patch management, access control, and secure system administration.
• Experience implementing infrastructure monitoring, centralized logging, configuration-drift detection, automated validation, and remediation capabilities.
• Familiarity with DISA STIGs, SCAP, RMF, NIST security controls, or comparable cybersecurity requirements for regulated environments.
• Experience supporting air-gapped, isolated, laboratory, manufacturing, or other highly controlled environments.
• Relevant infrastructure, operating system, virtualization, networking, or cybersecurity certifications from Microsoft, Red Hat, VMware, Cisco, CompTIA, or similar organizations.

Responsibilities

• Own deployment, operation, maintenance, and lifecycle management of production infrastructure and shared platform services across Windows, Linux, network, and virtualized environments.
• Collaborate with infrastructure engineers, ISSOs, and ISSEs to translate operational and security requirements into maintainable solutions and resolve vulnerabilities, configuration findings, and production issues.
• Administer Microsoft Active Directory, Group Policy, DNS, RADIUS, and other core identity and network services.
• Deploy, configure, patch, harden, monitor, and troubleshoot Windows and Linux servers to meet security, availability, and performance requirements.
• Administer VMware ESXi/vSphere environments, including virtual machines, storage, networking, capacity planning, availability, upgrades, and lifecycle management.
• Configure, maintain, and troubleshoot Cisco network infrastructure, including switching, routing, VLANs, segmentation, access controls, and connectivity.
• Develop and maintain Ansible playbooks, scripts, and reusable automation for provisioning, configuration management, system administration, and recurring tasks.
• Apply Infrastructure-as-Code and GitOps practices, including version control, peer review, automated validation, configuration baselines, and controlled infrastructure deployments.
• Implement and maintain monitoring, logging, alerting, backup, recovery, and operational health capabilities for production infrastructure services.
• Troubleshoot complex issues across compute, virtualization, networking, storage, authentication, and application dependencies; perform root-cause analysis and corrective action.
• Maintain infrastructure architecture, configuration standards, runbooks, and as-built documentation while advancing automation, modernization, reliability, and security and reducing technical debt.

Benefits

• Health insurance coverage
• Life and disability insurance
• Savings plan
• Company-paid holidays
• Paid time off for vacation and/or personal business
• Potential eligibility for overtime, shift differential, and a discretionary bonus, depending on the position
• Annual bonuses designed to reward individual contributions and share company results
• Potential eligibility for long-term incentives for Vice President or Director positions

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Principal