Principal/Sr Principal Software Engineer

Northrop Grumman•Roy, UT

3d•$98,400 - $184,200•Onsite

About The Position

Northrop Grumman Defense Systems is seeking Principal/Senior Principal AI Engineer Software. This is a dual level position and will be located in Location(s): Roy, Utah and will support the Sentinel program. We are seeking an experienced AI software engineer to join our data science and product teams. The ideal candidate will blend strong programming skills with deep familiarity in LLM deployment, agentic AI frameworks, and large scale data platforms. This role will contribute to building end to end AI solutions that drive product differentiation and scale.

Requirements

Principal Engineer Software: 05 Years with Bachelors in relevant field of study; 03 Years with Masters; 00 Years with PhD or 04 additional years in lieu of a degree.
Senior Principal Engineer Software: 08 Years with Bachelors in relevant field of study; 03 Years with Masters; 00 Years with PhD or 04 additional years in lieu of a degree.
Active DoD Secret clearance with a reinvestigation date occurring in the last 6 years.
U.S. Citizen and Ability to obtain Special Program Access (SAP).
Demonstrated proficiency in Python and JavaScript/TypeScript, with a strong track record of delivering production grade code and solving complex problems in both languages.
Familiarity in working with locally hosted large language models, including hands on experience deploying and optimizing frameworks such as Ollama and Llama?CPP
Familiarity with leading AI service APIs, including practical experience integrating, prompting, and fine tuning solutions built on OpenAI?ChatGPT, Anthropic?Claude, and Google?Gemini.
Familiarity with building agentic AI solutions using frameworks such as LangChain, LangGraph, or comparable libraries.

Nice To Haves

Proficiency with Node.js for backend development and React for building modern, responsive user interfaces.
Experience integrating multi modal large language models (e.g., vision language, audio text) to enable richer AI interactions.
Experience designing and optimizing Retrieval Augmented Generation pipelines and building agentic orchestrators to coordinate complex AI workflows.
Demonstrated first principles thinking with a proven ability to break down complex problems into fundamental components and devise original, robust solutions
Experience with graph database technologies such as Neo4j (or comparable platforms), fluency in Cypher queries, and practical knowledge of graph neural network methods
Demonstrated research mindset with the ability to translate cutting edge findings into practical, deployable solutions that deliver measurable business impact.

Responsibilities

Defines, develops, and delivers novel mathematical and statistical modeling and algorithm development to tackle the challenges of prediction, optimization, and classification.
Applies machine learning algorithms to large sets of structured and unstructured data to solve a broad range of problems that include applications in pattern recognition, target detection and tracking, machine learning and decision systems, and robotic systems.
Prototypes advanced artificial intelligence techniques to stretch the capability of autonomous systems research and development programs.
Designs, develops, documents, tests and debugs applications software and systems that contain logical and mathematical solutions.
Collaborates with cross-functional team to deploy machine learning algorithms to prototype testing and production. Ensures software standards are met.
May use system-of-systems and multi-agent approaches to architect and design AI software systems.
Perform integration testing, regression testing, and formal qualification testing in an agile software development environment
Works closely with AI Systems Engineers to understand program intent, system capabilities, and output requirements.
May design software-systems, applications, and data architectures that directly implement AI techniques to support achieving better reliability, precision, accuracy, and speed to meet performance requirements.