Software Engineer [ TS SCI ] at Northrop Grumman
Colorado Springs, CO
$103,600–$155,400from the description
Aug 18, 2026
Colorado Springs, CO
Sep 25, 2026
What this job asks for AI summary
A software engineering role on Northrop Grumman's FROST program, supporting satellite ground systems for the National Reconnaissance Office at Schriever Space Force Base near Colorado Springs. Day-to-day work centers on Java/Spring Boot backend development, React front-end interfaces, microservices, and containerized deployments in Kubernetes — all in a mission-critical, real-time on-orbit operations environment. Requires an active TS/SCI clearance and a CI polygraph prior to start.
Mid level · 5+ years · Colorado Springs, CO · TS/SCI clearance · Full-time
“or” means any one of them counts — you don't need all of them.
Posted 2 times — it's one opening, so apply once.
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 $137,233 (middle half $108,638–$170,529). 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 20, 2026. It is a model, not a headcount.
Why we read it this way (9)
The posting states 'Will require CI Poly prior to start' — this is a hard gate, mapped to TopSecretSci (TS/SCI with CI polygraph).
The posting also notes 'Will consider candidates with a TS/SCI clearance,' implying TS/SCI is the minimum acceptable clearance level at application, with the CI Poly required before starting.
Degree requirement is marked None because the posting explicitly accepts a High School diploma with 9 years of experience in lieu of a degree.
Total years minimum is set to 5, reflecting the lowest experience threshold tied to a Bachelor's degree; higher thresholds apply for lower education levels.
Spring Boot is listed under Basic Qualifications with the qualifier 'or other similar experience' — the qualifier means the specific tool is interchangeable, but hands-on framework experience of this kind is a hard gate.
Java IDE experience and Java build systems appear under Preferred Qualifications and are listed as preferred accordingly.
React is mentioned in the responsibilities narrative rather than a formal qualifications section, so it is treated as preferred context rather than a hard gate.
Microservices development is described as a responsibility but names no specific framework beyond Spring Boot, so no separate microservices skill is emitted.
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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