Sr. Principal AI Systems Engineer

RELOCATION ASSISTANCE: No relocation assistance available

CLEARANCE TYPE: None

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 is seeking a Senior level AI Systems Engineer to join the AI Infrastructure Engineering team within the Insights & Intelligence (i2) organization. This role will report to the Manager of AI Infrastructure Engineering and will be remote and/or hybrid supporting the Falls Church, VA office.

Insights & Intelligence (i2) is reimagining decision making at Northrop Grumman. As part of our Chief Information & Digital Office (CIDO), i2 works with all enterprise domains and businesses to drive our data, analytics & AI transformation.

The selected candidate will work with a team of DevOps and AI Systems Engineers focused on data ingestion, AI infrastructure, and AI model deployment at scale ensuring AI solutions are both economical and trustworthy.  Collaboration will be necessary with functional teams, product owners, and i2 leadership to evaluate use case feasibility and shape the roadmap for new and existing AI systems.

Responsibilities include but are not limited to the following:

• Architect and implement end‑to‑end pipelines for data ingestion, model training, validation, and serving.

• Develop self‑service APIs and CLI tools that allow internal teams to submit data for vectorization and manage index resources without recurring engineering support.

• Build internal SDKs, CLI tools, and libraries that simplify model deployment, monitoring, and lifecycle management for cross‑functional teams

• Research emerging embedding models and vector‑search technologies and determine applicability to overall AI strategy

• Stay current on emerging AI hardware and software frameworks; prototype and assess new technologies for adoption.

• Conduct cost‑benefit analyses of alternative cloud providers, on‑prem hardware, and managed AI services.

• Implement AI use cases ensuring compliance with relevant regulations and security standards, implementing necessary controls

• Work alongside data scientists, software engineers, and i2 functional teams to contribute to the roadmap for new and existing AI systems.

Basic Qualifications:

• Must have a Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, Information Systems or a related field

• Must have 8 years of relevant experience with a Bachelors degree OR 6 Years of relevant experience with a Masters degree OR 4 Years of relevant experience with PhD

• Must have at least 3 years of experience focused on AI or MLOps

• Must have a minimum of 2 years working with cloud (AWS or Azure) infrastructure and services with the ability to work in hybrid‑cloud or on‑prem environments

• Must have experience with relevant programming languages (e.g., Python, Java, Powershell/Bash) and AI/ML frameworks

• Must have basic knowledge of database technologies (e.g., SQL, NoSQL) and distributed computing systems

• Must have experience with evaluating and implementing cybersecurity for AI systems

• Must have demonstratable knowledge of matching hardware configuration to AI system requirements

• Must have exceptional verbal and written communication skills, with the ability to convey complex technical concepts to non-technical stakeholder's

Preferred Qualifications:

• Experience with cloud (AWS or Azure) native AI Services (SageMaker, EKS, ML, AKS, etc.)

• Prior experience with load testing and infrastructure planning/scaling

• Hands-on experience building AI systems and/or implementing AI use

• Experience with DevOps practices and tools for automation, CI/CD, and configuration management.

• AWS Associate Level Certificate or higher

• Azure Associate Level Certificate or higher

• Active DOW Secret Clearance or higher

Primary Level Salary Range: $156,400.00 - $234,600.00

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 http://www.northropgrumman.com/EEO. U.S. Citizenship is required for all positions with a government clearance and certain other restricted positions.