RELOCATION ASSISTANCE: Relocation assistance may be available

CLEARANCE TYPE: Polygraph

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.

One of our most challenging new fields is Microelectronics Design and Applications (MDA), which combines the unique properties of superconductivity and quantum mechanics to develop radical new energy-efficient computing systems. MDA is seeking a Data Science Software Engineer with demonstrated ability to lead development of new technologies to support our innovative MDA team in support of emerging supercomputing technologies.

Location: 100% onsite – Linthicum, MD or Annapolis Junction, MD
Security Clearance: Must be a U.S. citizen able to obtain and maintain a security clearance per program requirements.

Role Overview

As a Principal/ Senior Principal Data Engineer (individual contributor), you will design, develop, and operate high‑performance data pipelines that power mission‑critical analytics across the enterprise.

Facilitator, not gatekeeper – You will work hand‑in‑hand with stakeholders who act as Subject‑Matter Experts (SMEs) and Data Product Owners. Your role is to enable and co‑create solutions, empowering them to drive their data initiatives while maintaining technical rigor.
 

Commitment to best practices – The position demands a strong focus on automation, scalability, and transparency. You will champion industry‑standard data‑engineering practices—CI/CD, automated testing, metadata management, and observability—to ensure pipelines are reliable, repeatable, and easy to audit.

You will partner closely with product owners, architects, data scientists, and engineering peers to deliver clean, trusted data that supports business‑critical decisions.

Key Responsibilities

• Design and implement scalable data pipelines (batch & streaming)
• Select and integrate appropriate technologies (e.g., enterprise data warehouses, message brokers, workflow schedulers) while ensuring DoD security compliance.

• Write production‑grade, object‑oriented Python
• Optimize SQL queries and data models for relational and columnar stores (e.g., PostgreSQL, Oracle, enterprise data‑warehousing platforms).

• Implement monitoring, alerting, and logging (Prometheus, Grafana, Sentry) for data pipelines.
• Own incident response for data‑related issues, perform root‑cause analysis, and document post‑mortems.

• Partner with SMEs and Data Product Owners to translate business requirements into technical solutions, fostering shared ownership of data products.
• Lead and/or participate in agile ceremonies, sprint planning, and backlog grooming while encouraging stakeholder participation.

• Conduct code reviews, share knowledge of data‑engineering best practices, and enforce automation, scalability, and transparency standards.
• Contribute to technical documentation and design artifacts.

• Evaluate emerging data technologies and recommend adoption where beneficial.
• Drive automation of testing and CI/CD for data workloads.

Basic Qualifications for Principal Data Engineer:

Bachelor's degree in data science, software engineering, or related discipline with 5+ years of professional data‑engineering experience, with at least 2+ years focused on large‑scale pipeline development; master’s degree in data science, software engineering, or related discipline with 3+ years of experience; PhD and 1+ years of experience.Strong object‑oriented programming skills in Python (or Java/Scala).Deep experience building, monitoring, and troubleshooting batch and streaming pipelines.Advanced SQL proficiency; familiarity with relational and columnar data stores.Hands‑on experience with enterprise‑grade data platforms.Experience working in Agile development environments and using CI/CD pipelines for data workloads.Must be a U.S. citizen with ability to obtain/maintain a security clearance

Basic Qualifications for Senior Principal Data Engineer:

Bachelor’s (or higher) in Computer Science, Data Science, Software Engineering, or a related technical field. 8+ years of professional data‑engineering experience, with at least 3+ years focused on large‑scale pipeline development. Master’s degree in data science, software engineering, or related discipline with 6+ years of experience; PhD and 4+ years of experience.Strong object‑oriented programming skills in Python (or Java/Scala).Deep experience building, monitoring, and troubleshooting batch and streaming pipelines.Advanced SQL proficiency; familiarity with relational and columnar data stores.Hands‑on experience with enterprise‑grade data platforms.Experience working in Agile development environments and using CI/CD pipelines for data workloads.Must be a U.S. citizen with ability to obtain/maintain a security clearance

Preferred Qualifications for Principal / Senior Principal Data Engineer:

Experience with Tableau and/or Apache Superset.Familiarity with MongoDB, Cassandra, Elasticsearch, or similar technologies.Proven ability to thrive in fast‑paced, iterative development cycles.Hands-on experience with Lambda or Kappa architectures and distributed query engines (e.g., Trino).experience with Atlassian tools such as Jira and Confluence for work flow management, integrating tools to streamline tracking and enhance collaboration across teamsActive Security Clearance

Primary Level Salary Range: $119,600.00 - $179,400.00

Secondary Level Salary Range: $149,300.00 - $223,900.00

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.