Software Quality Engineer/ Prin Software Quality Engineer at Northrop Grumman
Palmdale, CA
$83,400–$146,300from the description
Jul 12, 2026
Palmdale, CA
Jul 21, 2026
What this job asks for AI summary
This role sits within an aeronautics engineering environment and focuses on enforcing software quality standards across multiple defense programs. Day-to-day work involves auditing software development processes, reviewing design and test documentation for compliance, witnessing qualification and acceptance testing, supporting CMMI and AS9100 audits, and evaluating software suppliers. It suits candidates with a background in software development or integration who want to move into a quality assurance function on classified programs.
Senior level · 2+ years · Remote · Bachelor's required · Top 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.
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 $106,594 (middle half $82,076–$136,109). 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 posting is a dual-level requisition covering both a Software Quality Engineer (2+ years, $83,400–$125,200/yr) and a Principal Software Quality Engineer (5+ years, $97,500–$146,300/yr). The compensation range reported spans both levels. The overall years minimum reflects the lower gate (2 years); the Principal level requires 5 years.
The job description explicitly states 'Telecommute/remote is not an option for this position' with named sites in Rancho Bernardo and Palmdale, CA. Remote has been set to true per caller instruction, overriding the posting's stated requirement; no metro has been inferred.
The clearance requirement states candidates must 'hold a Top-Secret clearance and ability to obtain program access.' The header also notes 'CLEARANCE TYPE: Secret,' creating a slight discrepancy — the body text gates on Top Secret, which is the stricter and more specific requirement and has been used.
CMMI and AS9100 are listed as responsibilities rather than in a formal qualifications section, but they represent domain-specific quality frameworks central to the role's day-to-day work and are treated as required knowledge.
Waterfall and Spiral development processes appear only in the Principal-level qualifications block; Spiral was omitted as a skill since it has no distinct tooling and is a methodology concept rather than a named technology.
Atlassian, Git, and Confluence appear under Preferred Qualifications and are marked accordingly.
The alternative occupation runner-up (15-1252 Software Developers) is noted because the posting mentions limited internal software tool development and requires demonstrated coding knowledge (C, C++, Java, Python), though the primary function is clearly quality assurance.
Requires a Top 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.
Caller marked this a fully-remote role — scored against the national candidate pool.
Read the full posting
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