Senior Optical Engineer, EO/IR Systems (Secret Clearance)

Northrop Grumman; United States; On-site; USD 140,000 - 200,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Relocation assistance

Job summary

Northrop Grumman in Linthicum, MD is seeking a Senior Principal Optical Engineer to lead optical implementations and system development for EO/IR systems on multiple programs. This 100% on-site role involves converting system requirements into optical architectures and coordinating with multidisciplinary teams.

The candidate will mentor junior staff, develop performance metrics, and engage with customers while advancing imaging and laser-based sensors from breadboards to flight-ready systems.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree plus 8 years of experience in STEM, or Master's 6 years, or PhD 4 years.
• U.S. Citizenship required.
• Active U.S. Government Secret Clearance required.
• Ability to obtain Special Program Access.
• Experience with Zemax, Code V or FRED for optical design and analysis.
• Experience in optical theory and detailed design for imaging and non-imaging systems.

Responsibilities

• Define architectures and lead implementations for IRAD, CRAD, and execution programs.
• Mentor and develop junior team members.
• Design, develop, integrate, test, and deploy optical systems for EOIR systems.
• Build and maintain physics-based sensor models.
• Develop and quantify performance metrics for system performance.
• Understand data quality and artifact impacts.
• Represent system performance in functional and analytical models.

Skills

Optical design

Team collaboration

Mentoring

Systems engineering

Education

Bachelor's degree in STEM fields

Master's degree in STEM fields

PhD in STEM fields

Tools

Zemax

Code V

FRED

Job description

Northrop Grumman in Linthicum, MD is seeking a Senior Principal Optical Engineer to lead optical implementations and system development for EO/IR systems on multiple programs. This 100% on-site role involves converting system requirements into optical architectures and coordinating with multidisciplinary teams.

The candidate will mentor junior staff, develop performance metrics, and engage with customers while advancing imaging and laser-based sensors from breadboards to flight-ready systems.