Principal Software Quality Engineer at Northrop Grumman
Melbourne, FL
$82,000–$123,000from the description
Aug 4, 2026
Melbourne, FL
Nov 9, 2026
What this job asks for AI summary
A Software Quality Engineer role at Northrop Grumman's Melbourne, FL campus focused on ensuring compliance, quality, and correctness across a defense software program. Day-to-day work spans code reviews, process audits, requirements traceability, metrics collection, root cause analysis, and oversight of formal software testing. The role suits an experienced QA engineer comfortable working within structured, contract-driven development environments on classified programs.
Senior level · 5+ years · Palm Bay-Melbourne-Titusville, FL · Bachelor's required · Secret clearance · Full-time
Advertised as Principal, but the requirements read as Senior.
“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
Most people in this occupation already list these. Still required — just not what gets you shortlisted.
What the occupation pays Median $107,309 (middle half $83,670–$136,160). 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 Aug 5, 2026. It is a model, not a headcount.
Why we read it this way (7)
The title says 'Principal' but the requirements (5 years minimum experience, a single-team scope, no org-wide technical authority) align with a Senior-level role by standard career-ladder definitions. The advertised seniority reflects the posted title.
Java, C++, and Python are listed together as interchangeable options ('coding in Java, C++, or Python') — one skill is emitted with the others as alternatives.
DOORS, Jira, Confluence, and BitBucket are listed together as examples of 'enterprise-wide systems and software problem tracking tools such as…' — they are presented as a group of tools the candidate should be able to work with, not strict one-or-the-other substitutes. Each is emitted separately as required; DOORS carries the others as alternatives only to reflect the 'such as' framing.
Waterfall, Spiral, and Agile are listed as interchangeable lifecycle knowledge options ('waterfall, spiral, or Agile life cycles') — emitted as one skill with alternatives.
An active Secret clearance is explicitly required to start, with the additional ability to obtain Special Program Access also required.
The degree requirement is a Bachelor's in a STEM field; a Master's (3 yrs) or PhD (0 yrs) are accepted alternatives, making Bachelor's the minimum hard gate. Equivalent experience is not offered as a substitute.
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.
Read the full posting
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