Electronics Engineer/ Principal Electronics Engineer - Dev Ops at Northrop Grumman
San Diego, CA
$91,800–$171,000from the description
Jul 15, 2026
San Diego, CA
Jul 20, 2026
What this job asks for AI summary
This role centers on building and sustaining enterprise-level DevOps tooling for cross-discipline engineering teams working on communication subsystems and advanced payload technologies. Day-to-day work involves software development in languages such as Python, Java, or C++, managing CI/CD pipelines, container orchestration, and analyzing large operational datasets — potentially using AI/ML methods. It suits engineers with a STEM background and hands-on experience in DevSecOps practices, requiring an active Top Secret clearance and full on-site presence.
Mid level · 2+ years · San Diego-Chula Vista-Carlsbad, CA · Bachelor's required · TS/SCI clearance · Full-time
Advertised as Principal, but the requirements read as Mid.
“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 $166,860 (middle half $131,418–$198,246). 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 (7)
This posting covers TWO levels simultaneously: 'Electronics Engineer' (2+ years, primary salary $91,800–$137,600) and 'Principal Electronics Engineer' (5+ years, secondary salary $114,000–$171,000). The overall years minimum and seniority reflect the lower-bound (Electronics Engineer) level; the Principal level would map to Senior.
The advertised title includes 'Principal Electronics Engineer', which drives the level advertised in the title to Principal, but the minimum qualifying experience (2 years for the base level) supports only a Mid classification.
The clearance requirement is Active Top Secret with the ability to obtain SCI and SAP access — effectively TS/SCI with SAP. Clearance is gated at start.
The 'experience in at least two of the following' block in Basic Qualifications lists five sub-skills (AI/ML, databases, container management, task automation, performance monitoring). Each is a hard gate as a category, but only two need to be satisfied. All five are marked required here as the JD does not specify which two — hiring managers should note that candidates need any two of these five.
Infrastructure as Code appears only under Preferred Qualifications and is listed as a preferred skill accordingly.
The role is explicitly on-site only in Rancho Bernardo, CA (San Diego metro); no remote or hybrid work is available.
Requires a TS/SCI 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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