Principal/ Sr Principal Software Signal Processing Engineer
Northrop Grumman · Colorado Springs, CO
$103,600–$193,900from the description
Jul 14, 2026
Colorado Springs, CO
Jul 21, 2026
What this job asks for AI summary
This role centers on building and optimizing radar digital signal processing software for a program focused on identifying and tracking objects in geosynchronous orbit. Day-to-day work involves designing, developing, and testing DSP algorithms and pipelines, with heavy use of GPU acceleration via CUDA and related libraries. It suits engineers with a solid background in RF signal processing, C++/Python/CUDA, and Linux who hold an active DoD Secret clearance.
Senior level · 5+ years · Colorado Springs, CO · Bachelor's required · 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.
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.
Most people in this occupation already list these. Still required — just not what gets you shortlisted.
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 Jul 28, 2026. It is a model, not a headcount.
Why we read it this way (9)
The posting advertises two levels simultaneously: Principal Software Signal Processing Engineer (5+ years BS, salary $103,600–$155,400) and Sr. Principal Software Signal Processing Engineer (8+ years BS, salary $129,300–$193,900). The compensation range shown spans both levels combined. The seniority assessment reflects the lower (Principal) level's requirements, which map to Senior on a standard career ladder.
Both levels share identical hard-required skills; the only difference is years of experience. The minimum total experience (5 years with a BS) is drawn from the Principal level.
A Bachelor of Science degree is the minimum stated; equivalent experience is not offered as a substitute, so the degree requirement is set to Bachelors.
An active DoD Secret clearance is explicitly required at time of application — this is a hard gate, not merely a condition of employment.
NVIDIA MatX is listed as a required qualification in both levels' Basic Qualifications sections, even though the Preferred section notes 'Matx is preferred, but not expected.' The Basic Qualifications listing takes precedence as the harder gate.
Radar domain knowledge, real-time processing, cuFFT/cuSignal familiarity, and MATLAB/Python functional familiarity all appear only under Preferred Qualifications and are marked accordingly.
The DSP toolchain (DSP System Toolbox, Signal Processing Toolbox, Phased Array System Toolbox) appears in the narrative/responsibilities section rather than the formal qualifications blocks, so it is treated as preferred context rather than a hard gate.
Ignored 1 non-technology phrase(s) as skills (responsibilities/concepts, not named tools): GPU optimization.
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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