Staff Engineer Data

Northrop Grumman•Linthicum Heights, MD

1d•$161,000 - $241,400•Hybrid

About The Position

At Northrop Grumman, our employees have incredible opportunities to work on revolutionary systems that impact people's lives around the world today, and for generations to come. Our pioneering and inventive spirit has enabled us to be at the forefront of many technological advancements in our nation's history - from the first flight across the Atlantic Ocean, to stealth bombers, to landing on the moon. We look for people who have bold new ideas, courage and a pioneering spirit to join forces to invent the future, and have fun along the way. Our culture thrives on intellectual curiosity, cognitive diversity and bringing your whole self to work — and we have an insatiable drive to do what others think is impossible. Our employees are not only part of history, they're making history. At the heart of Defining Possible is our commitment to missions. In rapidly changing global security environments, Northrop Grumman brings informed insights and secure technological solutions to enable strategic objectives. We’re looking for innovators who can help us keep building on our wide portfolio of secure, affordable, integrated, and multi-domain systems and technologies that fuel those missions. By joining in our shared mission, we will support yours of expanding your personal network and developing skills, whether you are new to the field or an industry thought leader. At Northrop Grumman, you will have the resources, support, and team to do some of the best work of your career. Mission Systems CIDO is seeking a Lead Palantir Solution Architect to own the technical and ontological architecture of the Foundry platform across all Arsenal portfolios. This shared, cross-portfolio role will bring discipline and consistency to the existing environment, establish standards that make sustainment sustainable, and guide the platform through the upcoming Phase 5 ERP migration. The architect will serve as the technical authority for ontology design decisions, including across competing portfolio needs. This is a strategic and hands-on role, combining platform architecture, governance, and transformation leadership. Ideally, this individual can look at our business problems holistically and select the best technical and architectural approach across Palantir Foundry, SAP, existing applications, and other technologies. A remote work schedule may be considered.

Requirements

Bachelor’s degree in a STEM discipline and 12+ years of experience in data/platform architecture, or a Master’s degree and 10+ years of experience.
The selected candidate will be required to obtain and maintain a U.S. Government Secret level security clearance as a condition of continued employment.
Significant hands-on experience with Palantir Foundry, including ontology design, pipelines, transforms (code and no-code), and the application layer.
Demonstrated experience designing or governing an enterprise ontology or data model across multiple applications, business units, or functional domains.
Experience leading or significantly contributing to a major system or platform migration (e.g., ERP, data platform), involving cross-functional coordination.
Proven track record transforming complex, inconsistently built environments into documented, governed, and maintainable architectures.
Demonstrated ability to act as a neutral technical authority across competing stakeholder groups, influencing without direct reporting authority and upholding standards under delivery pressure.
Strong communication skills with the ability to work effectively with both technical teams (developers, data engineers) and business/functional stakeholders.
Strong background in software development and architecture, with deep experience in databases and data architecture.
Demonstrated ability to evaluate multiple solution paths across Palantir Foundry, SAP, existing applications, and other technologies, and to make grounded decisions about the best overall approach.

Nice To Haves

Experience with SAP or other major ERP systems, particularly ERP-to-platform integration and migration.
Experience in manufacturing, supply chain, or defense/aerospace environments.
Experience establishing an architecture governance function, including decision-rights frameworks and review processes.
Familiarity with organizational change management practices in support of technical transitions; ability to partner closely with existing OCM teams.
Palantir Foundry certifications or equivalent demonstrated platform depth.
Experience effectively challenging and reshaping requests that do not align with sound technical or architectural principles, while maintaining constructive relationships with stakeholders.
Foundry/Ontology experience is important for this role, but the underlying concepts can be learned; depth in software, data architecture, and the SAP/ERP domain is considered even more critical.

Responsibilities

Develop and maintain a unified Foundry ontology strategy spanning all Arsenal portfolios and applications, eliminating redundant or conflicting object types, properties, and relationships.
Establish and enforce naming conventions, modeling standards, and object lifecycle governance to prevent fragmentation as new capabilities are delivered.
Partner with portfolio leads and application owners to assess existing ontology objects, identify technical debt, and prioritize remediation within a coordinated enterprise backlog.
Create and maintain authoritative ontology documentation (e.g., data dictionaries, lineage maps, relationship diagrams).
Define reference architecture patterns for pipelines, transforms, and integrations to promote consistency, scalability, and maintainability across the platform.
Serve as final technical reviewer/approver for new solution designs, ensuring alignment with platform and architecture standards.
Establish and maintain architecture decision records (ADRs) to document key design choices and rationales.
Act as the primary escalation point and design partner for sustainment developers when architectural ambiguity blocks bug fixes or enhancements.
Reduce mean time to resolution for sustainment tickets through improved documentation, clearer dependencies, and standardized patterns.
Build feedback loops between sustainment and architecture so recurring issues drive proactive remediation efforts.
Lead the technical assessment of ERP migration impacts on Foundry, including pipelines, connectors, and ontology objects dependent on current ERP structures.
Assess and mitigate risk to deployed applications reliant on ERP data, coordinating impact analysis across all affected portfolios.
Define a phased migration and cutover approach in partnership with ERP program leadership to minimize disruption to business operations.
Own post-migration validation of ontology integrity, data lineage, and platform stability under the new ERP backbone.
Establish a living architecture repository (standards, patterns, diagrams, decision logs) accessible to sustainment, delivery, and functional teams.
Integrate lightweight, durable documentation practices into the delivery lifecycle to prevent reaccumulation of documentation debt.