Sr. Principal Systems Engineer (Programmable Media)
Northrop Grumman · Rolling Meadows, IL
$135,800–$203,600from the description
Jul 15, 2026
Rolling Meadows, IL
Jul 20, 2026
What this job asks for AI summary
A senior-level systems engineering role focused on managing the documentation, software releases, and programmable media images for Infrared Countermeasures (IRCM) systems. Day-to-day work involves coordinating across engineering, program management, and customer teams to generate and process revision notices, drive process improvements, and maintain related internal software tools. Suits an experienced STEM engineer comfortable acting as a team lead and subject matter expert in a configuration- and data-management-heavy environment.
Senior level · 8+ years · Chicago-Naperville-Elgin, IL-IN-WI · 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.
We read this from the posting text with AI. Skim the description below before ruling yourself out.
Why we read it this way (7)
The title 'Sr. Principal Systems Engineer' maps to Principal in advertised level, but the actual requirements (BS + 8 years, coordination/documentation work, team lead of peers) are consistent with a Senior individual contributor — not a true Principal/org-wide authority role. Northrop Grumman uses 'Sr. Principal' as an internal grade, not the top-of-ladder Principal band.
The JD states the candidate must be able to obtain and maintain a Secret clearance (not currently required to hold one at start); a current active Secret clearance is listed only under Preferred Qualifications. The clearance gate is therefore 'ability to obtain Secret.'
MS Access and SQL are listed together as a single preferred item ('MS Access, SQL or other database programs') — SQL is used as the primary skill name with MS Access as an alternative.
Teamcenter (TcE/PDM) and ISE are listed together under Preferred Qualifications; ISE is not a widely canonical standalone tool name and is omitted as a separate skill to avoid ambiguity.
The core required skills (document coordination, revision notices, configuration/data management, qualification testing support, quality improvements) are process/domain competencies rather than named technologies, so they are not emitted as discrete skills per extraction rules.
EOIR systems, sensors, and optics domain knowledge appear only under Preferred Qualifications as specialty areas.
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.
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