Principal Engineer Systems/Sr. Principal Systems Engineer at Northrop Grumman
Colorado Springs, CO
$103,600–$193,900from the description
Jul 28, 2026
Colorado Springs, CO
Jul 29, 2026
What this job asks for AI summary
A Systems Engineer role on a ground-based radar program at Northrop Grumman's Space Systems Sector in Colorado Springs, working in-person with an interdisciplinary team. The engineer will develop and integrate radar performance algorithms, conduct signals processing and modeling/simulation of mission scenarios, translate system requirements into algorithm designs, and support mission engineering activities across the Systems Engineering lifecycle. The role suits an experienced engineer with radar systems expertise and an active Top Secret clearance.
Senior level · 5+ years · Colorado Springs, CO · Bachelor's required · TS/SCI clearance · Full-time
“or” means any one of them counts — you don't need all of them.
We read this from the posting text with AI. Skim the description below before ruling yourself out.
How this req sits in the market our data
Rare in this occupation — lead with these, and say what you built with them.
What the occupation pays Median $112,511 (middle half $80,144–$140,023). This posting is about at that midpoint.
Estimated from BLS employment for this occupation and area, per-skill prevalence across our listing corpus, and published wage benchmarks — as of Jul 29, 2026. It is a model, not a headcount.
Why we read it this way (9)
The posting advertises two levels simultaneously — Senior Systems Engineer (5 years with a Bachelor's) and Sr. Principal Systems Engineer (8 years with a Bachelor's). The salary ranges are also dual: $103,600–$155,400 for the Senior level and $129,300–$193,900 for the Sr. Principal level; both ranges are reported here as the combined floor and ceiling.
The clearance requirement is stated as Top Secret with the ability to obtain and maintain SCI access, which maps to TS/SCI.
The degree requirement is a STEM Bachelor's (or higher), with no equivalent-experience substitution offered; a Bachelor's is the minimum stated.
Total years minimum is set to 5 (the lower of the two level thresholds), reflecting the Senior level entry point.
Jira and Confluence are listed together as the Atlassian tool suite; both are captured as separate required skills since they are distinct tools.
Python, C/C++, and Java appear under Preferred Qualifications; Python is listed as the primary skill with C++ and Java as alternatives since the posting groups them as interchangeable options.
Agile (Kanban, Scrum) appears under Preferred Qualifications.
The Systems Engineering lifecycle and requirement derivation/decomposition skills mentioned in Preferred Qualifications are methodological concepts rather than named tools and are not emitted as skills.
Requires a TS/SCI 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.
Read the full posting
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