Sentinel - Sr. Principal Fulgurite Specialty Reliability Systems Engineer
Northrop Grumman · Roy, UT
$122,800–$184,200from the description
Jul 10, 2026
Roy, UT
Jul 21, 2026
What this job asks for AI summary
A senior reliability systems engineering role supporting a nuclear-certified ICBM program (Sentinel) in Roy, UT. The work centers on reliability modeling, failure mode analysis, requirements generation and verification across the system hierarchy, and leading lab-based hardware-in-the-loop testing. The role also involves producing technical deliverables for government stakeholders and ensuring compliance with defense and nuclear safety engineering standards. Suits an experienced engineer with a background in high-assurance or nuclear surety systems.
Senior level · 8+ years · Ogden-Clearfield, UT · Bachelor's required · Secret clearance · Full-time
Advertised as Principal, but the requirements read as Senior.
We read this from the posting text with AI. Skim the description below before ruling yourself out.
Why we read it this way (9)
This role is a Reliability Systems Engineer, not a standard computer/mathematical occupation — it sits at the intersection of systems engineering and reliability engineering for nuclear-certified defense systems (ICBM/Sentinel program). No SOC code maps cleanly; 15-1299 (Computer Occupations, All Other) is used as the closest available code, with 15-1211 (Computer Systems Analysts) as a secondary option given the systems-analysis and verification work. The role is fundamentally a defense/aerospace systems engineering position.
The posting titles this as 'Sr. Principal … (level 4)' — advertised as Principal. However, the actual scope (leading reliability activities on one program, mentoring junior engineers, 8 years minimum experience) is consistent with a Senior-level role rather than a true org-wide Principal.
Clearance: An active Secret clearance is required at time of application. The posting also states the candidate must be able to obtain Top Secret/SAP access, but Secret is the hard gate for start.
The 8-year minimum experience applies to a Bachelor's degree holder; 6 years with a Master's, 4 years with a PhD. The minimum is reported as 8 years (Bachelor's path).
DO-178C, DO-254, MIL-STD-498, CMMI, and NQA-1 appear under Preferred Qualifications (1+ year with Northrop Grumman engineering standards), so they are marked preferred. These same standards are referenced in the required duties narrative, but the explicit experience requirement for them is placed in the preferred section.
ICBM/Sentinel experience and nuclear surety/NQA-1 reliability assessment experience are listed under Preferred Qualifications.
Hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) testing and nuclear surety reliability requirements development are described as job duties but no specific tool or platform is named, so no discrete skill entry is created for them beyond the reliability modeling and failure mode analysis skills already captured.
Ignored 4 non-technology phrase(s) as skills (responsibilities/concepts, not named tools): reliability modeling, failure mode analysis, system architecture, requirements management.
Requires a Secret clearance — the cleared population is a small fraction of this occupation, so the real candidate pool is materially smaller than the estimate below, which does not model clearance.
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