Staff Systems Engineer at Northrop Grumman

The title is 'Staff Systems Engineer,' but the actual requirements (12 years with a BS, or 10 with an MS, or 8 with a PhD) and scope (member of an interdisciplinary team, no explicit org-wide technical authority) are consistent with a Senior-level role. 'Staff' in the title at Northrop Grumman is a grade designation rather than a true cross-org technical leadership band, so seniority is assessed as Senior.

The minimum experience threshold is 8 years (PhD path); the BS path requires 12 years and the MS path 10 years. Total years minimum is set to 8 to reflect the lowest qualifying path.

SOC classification is Medium confidence: Systems Engineering is not a perfect fit for any single SOC code. 15-1299 (Computer Occupations, All Other) is used as the closest match for model-based systems engineering work; 15-1211 (Computer Systems Analysts) is a plausible alternative given the requirements analysis and architecture definition duties.

An active or in-scope Secret clearance (or enrollment in Continuous Evaluation) is a hard gate for this role at start.

Degree requirement is set to Bachelors because the JD requires a STEM BS as the baseline path; equivalent experience alone is not offered as a substitute — a degree is always required across all three qualifying paths.

Preferred qualifications include a degree in Aerospace, Mechanical, Systems, or Software Engineering; experience in military aerospace development; and Agile methodologies — none of these gate the role.

Ignored 2 non-technology phrase(s) as skills (responsibilities/concepts, not named tools): Cameo Enterprise Architecture, Model-Based Systems Engineering.

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.