Senior Space Systems Engineer – Mission Architect

Northrop Grumman Corp.; Chantilly (VA); On-site; USD 114,000 - 171,000; Full time

Job summary

Northrop Grumman Space Sector seeks a Principal (Level 3) to support new programs in the Space Superiority and Warfighting Division in Dulles, VA. The role is onsite, requiring SCI clearance, with responsibilities spanning systems engineering, requirements management, and mission planning.

The candidate will lead cross-disciplinary teams, develop design reference missions, and produce technical analyses and briefings for senior leaders. Strong scripting and modeling skills are valued.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree with 5 years of professional experience or Master’s degree with 3 years of professional experience or PhD with 1 year of professional experience.
• Active Top-Secret/Sensitive Compartmented Information (SCI) clearance at time of application.
• Experience in systems engineering including architectural studies, technical baseline definition, requirements & interface management, hardware/software integration, and mission planning & execution.

Responsibilities

• Develop technical content and summaries for major program milestones and readiness reviews.
• Create and provide input to program data products and deliverables for key stakeholders.
• Model mission-level elements with mission partners and assess a vehicle’s day-in-the-life for design reference missions.
• Produce analyses (propellant budgets, on-orbit fuel requirements, RF link budgets, mission lifetime estimates) and develop analysis tools as needed.
• Manage requirements decomposition from the Mission to Subsystems and develop Interface Control Documents.

Skills

Systems engineering

Requirements management

Interface management

Hardware/software integration

Mission planning & execution

Cross-disciplinary collaboration

Briefing senior leaders

Model-based system engineering

Scripting (Python, MATLAB, STK)

Orbital mechanics / space systems

Education

Bachelor's degree

Master's degree

PhD

Tools

Python

STK

MATLAB

Job description

Northrop Grumman Space Sector seeks a Principal (Level 3) to support new programs in the Space Superiority and Warfighting Division in Dulles, VA. The role is onsite, requiring SCI clearance, with responsibilities spanning systems engineering, requirements management, and mission planning.

The candidate will lead cross-disciplinary teams, develop design reference missions, and produce technical analyses and briefings for senior leaders. Strong scripting and modeling skills are valued.