Sr Staff Cyber Systems Engineer at Northrop Grumman
San Antonio, TX
$144,900–$217,300from the description
Jul 16, 2026
San Antonio, TX
Jul 21, 2026
What this job asks for AI summary
A senior leadership role on the Sentinel program, focused on cybersecurity systems engineering for airborne and ground weapon systems. The position involves leading a team of cybersecurity engineers to ensure designs meet DoD cybersecurity standards, managing cost and schedule, conducting assessments, and coordinating with program stakeholders. It suits a deeply experienced systems security engineer with a current Secret clearance and CISSP certification.
Staff level · 14+ years · San Antonio-New Braunfels, TX · Bachelor's required · Secret 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
Most people in this occupation already list these. Still required — just not what gets you shortlisted.
What the occupation pays Median $125,255 (middle half $101,678–$152,501). 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 28, 2026. It is a model, not a headcount.
Why we read it this way (9)
The title 'Sr. Staff Cyber Systems Engineer' and the role's cross-team leadership scope (leading multiple CSSE engineers, advising program-level technical decisions, cost/schedule/scope ownership) support a Staff-level classification rather than Senior.
The clearance gate is layered: an active Secret is required to start (hard gate), the ability to obtain TS/SCI and SAP access is also required per Basic Qualifications, while an already-active TS/SCI is listed only under Preferred Qualifications. The clearance requirement is set to Secret (the stated start requirement); the TS/SCI obtain-ability requirement is captured in notes.
Experience requirement is tiered by degree: 14 years with a Bachelor's, 12 with a Master's, 10 with a PhD. The overall years minimum reflects the Bachelor's floor (14); candidates with advanced degrees may qualify with fewer years.
The role is primarily cybersecurity systems engineering for a DoD weapon system (Sentinel), making 15-1212 the best fit, though the heavy systems-engineering leadership framing (requirements, architecture, review boards) gives 15-1211 a reasonable secondary claim.
IASAE III certification (ISSEP or ISSAP) is listed under Preferred Qualifications; only IASAE II (CISSP) is a hard gate from Basic Qualifications.
AFI 17-101 and DoD 8140/8570 compliance are cited as contractual obligations in the role description; DoD 8570 is captured as a required skill.
SonarQube and Fortify are listed together as examples of a 'security-related tool suite in DevSecOps pipeline' under Preferred Qualifications — they are treated as interchangeable alternatives within that preferred skill.
Ignored 2 non-technology phrase(s) as skills (responsibilities/concepts, not named tools): Systems Security Engineering, NIST SP 800-160.
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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