Northrop Grumman Aeronautics Systems has an opening for a Principal or Sr. Principal Vehicle Management Systems (VMS) Engineer Aeronautical to join our team of qualified, diverse individuals within our South Bay Vehicle Engineering organization.  This position is located in Redondo Beach, CA or El Segundo, CA.

The selected candidate should thrive in a fast-paced work environment with high expectations and collaborative/team settings across all levels.

Primary Duties and Responsibilities:

• Experience designing flight critical hardware architecture for an air vehicle.

• Define, develop, and manage components, interface definitions, and implementation approaches of flight critical systems such as:

  • Flight control computers or vehicle management computers

  • Flight control actuation systems (FCAS)

  • Air data systems (ADS)

  • IMU and GPS for Navigation

  • Electrical power systems

• Experience working with hardware in a hands-on laboratory environment.

• Ability to troubleshoot hardware and software problems.

• Experience developing in one or more of the following languages C, C++, Rust and Python.

• Ability to read and evaluate an electrical schematic.

• Perform component hardware and software integration, and derive software requirements for control of flight-critical and safety-critical systems

• Develop and execute component, subsystem, and system level test procedures to verify functionality of the VMS hardware and software.

• Basic understanding of flight dynamics and attitude control (roll, pitch, and yaw) through thrust and control surface (i.e. aileron, ruddervator) actuation.

• Define key subsystem-level requirements from high level aircraft and program requirements to define avionics hardware architectures according to customer specifications

• Investigate and resolve system anomalies across multiple engineering disciplines

• Perform technical planning, analysis, and hardware trade studies to meet requirements.

• Coordinate and manage suppliers for hardware procurement

This requisition may be filled at either a Principal or Sr. Principal VMS Engineer Aeronautical level.

Basic Qualifications for Principal VMS Engineer Aeronautical:

• Bachelor’s Degree in a Science, Technology, Engineering, or Mathematics (STEM) field from an accredited university with 5 years of related engineering experience OR a master’s degree (STEM) with 3 years of related engineering experience OR a PhD Degree (STEM) discipline from an accredited university with a minimum of 1 year of experience.

• Priority given to individuals with a degree in computer, software or electrical / electronic engineering.

• Experience with design, development, and/or integration of the Air Vehicle systems and subsystems listed above

• Experience with defining electrical and data interfaces (such as MIL-STD-1553, RS-232, ARINC 429, or analog interfaces)

• Experience with hardware/software integration

• Must have a current active in-scope DoD Secret security clearance or higher, with the ability to obtain Special Program Access (SAP).

Basic Qualifications for Sr Principal VMS Engineer Aeronautical:

• Bachelor’s Degree in a Science, Technology, Engineering, or Mathematics (STEM) field from an accredited university with 8 years of related engineering experience OR a master’s degree (STEM) with 6 years of related engineering experience OR a PhD Degree (STEM) with 4 years

• Priority given to individuals with a degree in computer, software or electrical / electronic engineering.

• Extensive experience with design, development, and/or integration of the Air Vehicle systems and subsystems listed above

• Extensive experience with defining electrical and data interfaces (such as MIL-STD-1553, RS-232, ARINC 429, or analog interfaces)

• Extensive experience with hardware/software integration, verification & validation

• Extensive experience with engineering modeling and simulation

• Must have a current active in-scope DoD Secret security clearance or higher, with the ability to obtain Special Program Access (SAP).

Preferred Qualifications:

• Experience writing device specific ICD parsing software (e.g. Parsing an inertial measurement unit byte stream to receive appropriate acceleration data)

• Experience with utilizing lab test equipment (e.g. oscilloscope, multimeter, etc.)

• Experience developing within a real-time operating system.

• Experience working with and developing for communication protocols such as, RS-232, RS-485 or MIL-STD-1553.

• Experience developing within the Linux for ARM environment.

• Excellent oral, written, and interpersonal communication skills

• Ability to lead a team, organize work, manage time, plan, and prioritize

• A current active in-scope U.S. Government DoD Secret clearance with current or previous Special Access Program (SAP).