Software System Engineer (Level 4) - AHT

Northrop Grumman•Redondo Beach, CA

1d•$142,200 - $213,400•Onsite

About The Position

Northrop Grumman's Space Sector is seeking a Software System Engineer (Level 4) to join our team of highly qualified, diverse professionals within the Western Region Software Engineering directorate. This position is located onsite in Redondo Beach, CA. Please be aware that this position is contingent upon capturing program award(s) and obtaining and maintaining associated business and/or customer funding. Furthermore, this position is contingent upon the candidate obtaining final clearances and program access(es) within a reasonable period of time as determined by the company. Continued employment thereafter will be subject to maintenance at the level of clearance and program access required for the position in the future.

Requirements

Bachelor’s degree in a STEM discipline with 8+ years of software engineering experience, or a Master’s degree in a STEM discipline with 6+ years of experience, or a Ph.D. in a STEM discipline with 4+ years of relevant experience.
Must have an active U.S. Government Top Secret clearance at the time of application, with the ability to obtain Special Program Access within a reasonable period of time as determined by the company.
Strong programming skills in at least one of the following: Java, Python, or C++; ability to read and debug the others is a plus.
Hands-on experience designing and developing containerized applications (e.g., Docker) for deployment to a private cloud environment.
Experience with container orchestration platforms (preferably Kubernetes, OpenShift, or similar).
Practical experience integrating applications with Apache Kafka or other distributed messaging/streaming platforms (producers, consumers, topics, partitions, consumer groups).
Proficiency with Linux environments and shell scripting.
Experience with build tools (e.g., Maven/Gradle for Java, CMake for C++, or equivalent).
Experience in systems engineering for distributed systems or cloud-native applications.
Experience developing and maintaining system requirements, interface control documents (ICDs), and architecture diagrams for distributed/cloud systems.

Nice To Haves

Experience with mission-critical or real-time systems, ideally in space mission planning domains.
Experience building RESTful APIs and/or microservices that integrate with backend data sources.
Experience integrating containerized applications with internal enterprise systems (e.g., databases, identity services, monitoring, logging).
Experience designing event-driven architectures and messaging flows using Kafka or equivalent event streaming platforms (e.g., Kafka Streams, NATS, ActiveMQ), including schema design, message contracts, error handling, replay patterns, and stream processing.
Hands-on experience with at least one major cloud provider (AWS, Azure, GCP) or an equivalent internal cloud platform (networking, storage, IAM, logging, monitoring).
Background in microservices architecture and patterns (service discovery, configuration management, circuit breakers, API gateways).
Experience with performance profiling and optimization for Java, Python, or C++ services.
Knowledge of software design patterns and modern architectural practices.
Experience working in multi-disciplinary engineering teams supporting large system integrations.
Experience developing clean, secure code (e.g., Sonar scans, unit tests, code coverage, Fortify).

Responsibilities

Perform a combination of tasks including software development, systems engineering, and occasional Scrum Master duties.
Design, implement, and integrate containerized software components for a space mission planning system.
Integrate mission planning services with Kafka-based backend data streams, ensuring reliability and scalability.
Collaborate with systems engineers to understand mission planning requirements and translate them into robust software solutions.
Implement and maintain cloud-deployed services, including monitoring, logging, and alerting.
Drive software quality through unit and integration testing, code reviews, test automation, and the use of test frameworks (e.g., JUnit, pytest, GoogleTest, TestComplete).
Troubleshoot and resolve issues across application, container, and cloud layers.
Apply a solid understanding of distributed systems concepts, including scalability, resiliency, fault tolerance, and observability.
Apply secure coding practices and basic cloud security concepts (authentication/authorization, secrets management, TLS).
Use source control and branching strategies (Git, Git workflows).
Demonstrate strong problem-solving, debugging, and communication skills.

Benefits

Medical, Dental & Vision coverage
401k
Educational Assistance
Life Insurance
Employee Assistance Programs & Work/Life Solutions
Paid Time Off
Health & Wellness Resources
Employee Discounts
Flexible Schedules: for example, the ability to work a 9/80 work schedule, which allows an employee to work a nine-hour day Monday through Thursday and take every other Friday off of work.
Relocation assistance may be available