Sr Principal Software Engineer – BM/SRM (26-325)
Northrop Grumman · Huntsville, AL
$135,800–$203,600from the description
Jul 9, 2026
Huntsville, AL
Jul 21, 2026
What this job asks for AI summary
A senior software engineering role focused on designing, developing, and maintaining high-throughput, object-oriented applications for a missile defense command-and-control system. Day-to-day work spans the full development lifecycle — analysis, coding, integration testing, debugging, and performance benchmarking — alongside mentoring junior engineers. Suits an experienced DoD software engineer with Python proficiency, Agile experience, and an active Secret clearance.
Senior level · 8+ years · Huntsville, AL · 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 $130,897 (middle half $102,526–$165,828). 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 (8)
The title 'Sr Principal Software Engineer' maps to advertised Principal, but the actual requirements — 8 years of experience, team-level scope, and no explicit org-wide technical authority — support a Senior classification.
Degree requirement is marked None because the JD explicitly accepts 12 years of relevant work experience as an alternative to any degree.
The minimum experience threshold is 8 years (Bachelor's + 8 years path); the Master's + 6 years and 12-years-no-degree paths are alternatives, so 8 is used as the overall years minimum.
Python is a hard gate; the JD requires 'at least one additional OOP language' with Java, C#, and C++ named as examples — Java is listed as the primary with C# and C++ as alternatives on a single skill entry.
Jira and Confluence appear together under Preferred Qualifications as Atlassian tools; Jira is listed as primary with Confluence as an alternative since they satisfy the same 'Atlassian tooling' preference.
SysML and Use Cases appear under Preferred Qualifications alongside SysML diagrams; SysML is listed as the named tool.
An active, in-scope DoD Secret clearance is a hard gate required at time of application, not just at start.
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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