Senior Staff Product Line Engineering Architect
Ngc· Defense· Sep 30, 2026 · 28d ago
San Diego, CA
In office
Full-time
Staff
$184K–$289K
14+ years exp
Job description
RELOCATION ASSISTANCE: No relocation assistance available
CLEARANCE REQUIRED FOR START: Yes
CLEARANCE TYPE: Secret
TRAVEL: Yes, 10% of the Time Description
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.
Northrop Grumman Mission Systems is a trusted provider of mission-enabling solutions for global security. We have a wide portfolio of secure, affordable, integrated, and multi-domain systems and technologies. Our differentiated battle management and cyber solutions deliver timely, mission-enabling information and provide superior situational awareness and understanding to protect the U.S. and its global allies.
Northrop Grumman Mission Systems is looking for you to join our team as a Senior Staff Product Line Engineering Architect based out of San Diego, CA or Baltimore, MD.
What You’ll Get to Do:
Join the PLA (Product Line Architectures) team within the Engineering and Science (E&S) Sector Engineering organization. Product Line Engineering (PLE) is a way to engineer a family of related products in an efficient manner, taking full advantage of the products’ similarities while respecting and managing their differences. The mission of the PLA team is to foster the adoption of product lines across the Mission Systems organization through coaching, training, guidance, best practices, tools, and metrics for measuring success. This position will support the Navigation, Intelligence & Connectivity (NIC) division.
This highly visible role will support teams that are both already executing Product Line organizational change and teams that are new to the process by helping them implement successful product lines. In this role you will:
Build relationships with senior technical and business leaders at the division level across Missions Systems to provide guidance on their role in the PLA adoption process and ensure successful transition to PLE for their teams.
Adapt Systems and Product or Software Architecture Experience to Increase Product Line efficiency and adoption from Development and Production through the Sustainment.
Be persistent in organizational change to Increase Product Line Adoption across Mission Systems.
Use existing knowledge of software architecture and Model-Based System Engineering (MBSE) tools to help define and shape the PL adoption strategy for PL teams and at the division level across the NGMS sector.
Provide coaching on PL principles, practices, and the adoption process and work with the product line team and division leadership to identify where the process needs to be tailored to meet individual organization requirements.
Create new coaching materials including tools, templates, techniques, and processes.
Help teams create and modify their product lines using MBSE tools like Cameo, IBM Rhapsody Architect and Pure::Variants to track product line variation.
Schedule and conduct PLE focused education and awareness sessions, surveys, technology demonstrations, and other training events.
Ensure our product line engineering strategy is aligned with NG digital transformation strategy.
Use Confluence to document status and new processes.
Basic Qualifications:
Bachelor s Degree in a STEM discipline (Science, Technology, Engineering or Math) and a minimum of 14 years of related experience; or Master s Degree in a STEM discipline and 12 years of related experience; or PhD in a STEM discipline and 10 years of related experience.
Experience leading technical teams, demonstrating technical leadership skills, decisiveness, and ability to make sound technical judgments with limited information.
Experience with the technical development and direction for all aspects of engineering on a program, including design, development, implementation, testing, and delivery of product to a customer.
Systems Engineering experience including requirements management, systems architecture development, and model-based engineering/systems engineering (MBE/MBSE) using tools such as, IBM Rhapsody and Cameo.
Exposure to traceability across the systems engineering lifecycle, engineering processes and governance, family of systems/products, model-based architectures, and strategic reuse or variant management.
U.S. Citizenship and current/active U.S. Government Secret Clearance required. Must have the ability to obtain/maintain U.S. Government Top Secret Clearance and Special Program Access (SAP).
Preferred Qualifications:
Active U.S. Government Top Secret Clearance or higher.
Experience working with Systems Architecture, Software architecture, Product Architecture or Chief Engineering roles
Software development tools, methods, and best practices
Experience with Sensor System Development, including RF and/or Electro-optical and Infrared
Product line engineering experience internal or external to Northrop Grumman
Systems, and/or software or hardware architecture derivation and development experience
Active in the PLE Community of Practice (CoP) or presented PLE content at relevant industry conferences or NG Symposiums
Leading organizational change, in partnership with executive management and technical leadership
Project Management Professional (PMP) Certification
Certified Systems Engineering Professional (CSEP)
Primary Level Salary Range: $184,100.00 - $289,200.00
The above salary range represents a general guideline; however, Northrop Grumman considers a number of factors when determining base salary offers such as the scope and responsibilities of the position and the candidate's experience, education, skills and current market conditions.
Depending on the position, employees may be eligible for overtime, shift differential, and a discretionary bonus in addition to base pay. Annual bonuses are designed to reward individual contributions as well as allow employees to share in company results. Employees in Vice President or Director positions may be eligible for Long Term Incentives. In addition, Northrop Grumman provides a variety of benefits including health insurance coverage, life and disability insurance, savings plan, Company paid holidays and paid time off (PTO) for vacation and/or personal business.
The application period for the job is estimated to be 20 days from the job posting date. However, this timeline may be shortened or extended depending on business needs and the availability of qualified candidates.
Northrop Grumman is an Equal Opportunity Employer, making decisions without regard to race, color, religion, creed, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, marital status, national origin, age, veteran status, disability, or any other protected class. For our complete EEO and pay transparency statement, please visit northropgrumman.com. U.S. Citizenship is required for all positions with a government clearance and certain other restricted positions.
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