Principal Systems Integration and Test Engineer (El Dorado Hills)

At Northrop Grumman, our employees have incredible opportunities to work on revolutionary systems that impact people's lives around the world today, and for generations to come. Our pioneering and inventive spirit has enabled us to be at the forefront of many technological advancements in our nation's history - from the first flight across the Atlantic Ocean, to stealth bombers, to landing on the moon. We look for people who have bold new ideas, courage and a pioneering spirit to join forces to invent the future, and have fun along the way. Our culture thrives on intellectual curiosity, cognitive diversity and bringing your whole self to work — and we have an insatiable drive to do what others think is impossible. Our employees are not only part of history, they're making history.

Northrop Grumman Defense Systems, Special Mission Aircraft (SMA) Operating Unit (OU) is seeking a Principal Systems Integration and Test Engineer to join our team at our El Dorado Hills, CA facility. Our team provides customers with support specializing in the development of a novel turbine based power generator and pure digital power distribution electronics. The NGC IPMS team is developing novel energy production solutions for national security, military, and civil customers. We are built on a heritage of providing innovative, affordable and reliable aerospace and defense products that our customers rely on to achieve mission success. In this role at Northrop Grumman you will have a challenging and rewarding opportunity to be a part of our transformational Energy Production Innovation Center (NGC EPIC). Through the use of Model-based Engineering, DevSecOps and Agile practices we continue to evolve how we deliver energy and power distribution systems for critical national defense products and capabilities for the warfighter.  Our success is grounded in our ability to embrace change, move quickly and continuously drive innovation.  The successful candidate will be collaborative, open, transparent, and team-oriented with a focus on team empowerment & shared responsibility, flexibility, continuous learning, and a culture of automation. Join the IPMS energy revolution and make the impossible, possible.

What You’ll get to Do:  

In this role, you will have the opportunity to complete a wide variety of challenges that span the gamut of effort required to accomplish system-level tests of our turbine-generators and associated power distribution systems—from integrating data-acquisition systems and programming automation routines to acquiring and analyzing data and writing procedures and reports.  Along the way, you will learn all about the technologies that make our power-generation and distribution systems unique, gaining valuable insight to ensure our tested products are assets our nation’s bravest service members can trust.

This is a small diverse and highly motivated team.  This role may require long shifts and serious commitment to support the team’s aggressive test campaign and may include night shift support 30-50% of the time.  The workload for individual test campaigns may span two and three weeks continuously in some cases.  The role will also involve field engineering testing support at various customer sites around the US.

Basic Qualifications for Principal Systems Integration and Test Engineer:

• Bachelor’s Degree in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering or Math) discipline with 5 years relevant work experience; or Master’s Degree in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering or Math) discipline with 3 years relevant work experience
• Experience using benchtop instrumentation (e.g. spectrum analyzers and digital multimeters)
• Strong drive to figure out why something happened during a test and how it relates to the overall test goal(s)
• Ability to read and interpret mechanical drawings, create, read and interpret instrumentation and process layout drawings and whiteboard sketches
• Ability to install, neatly wire-up/connect and debug data acquisition setups
• Familiarity with rotating machinery test instrumentation including thermocouples, force sensors, displacement sensors, accelerometers, and 1x pickups.
• Solid background with data acquisition systems and basic signal processing concepts
• Ability to do computer-based work for extended periods of time
• Ability to lift and position parts weighing as much as 40 lbs.
• Ability to interpret basic circuit diagrams
• Must be willing to work night shift 30-50% of the time
• Must be willing to work at field sites up to 25% of the time
• Must be a US citizen
• Ability to obtain a DoD Security Clearance

Preferred Qualifications:

• Master’s Degree in Mechanical Engineering, Electrical Engineering, or Aerospace Engineering Industry experience related to testing and troubleshooting
• Active Secret Clearance
• Experience troubleshooting analog or high-voltage circuitry
• Programming and/or automation experience (e. g. MATLAB, Python, C/C++, C#, and Visual Basic)
• PLC programming experience (e.g. Allen Bradley)
• Experience testing magnetic bearings or other rotating machinery
• Acoustics, dynamics, or control-systems testing experience
• Experience using multi-channel data acquisition (DAQ) systems
• Experience testing large structures
• Systems-Engineering experience

Salary Range: $95,000 USD - $142,400 USD

Employees may be eligible for a discretionary bonus in addition to base pay. Annual bonuses are designed to reward individual contributions as well as allow employees to share in company results. Employees in Vice President or Director positions may be eligible for Long Term Incentives. In addition, Northrop Grumman provides a variety of benefits including health insurance coverage, life and disability insurance, savings plan, Company paid holidays and paid time off (PTO) for vacation and/or personal business.

The health and safety of our employees and their families is a top priority. The company encourages employees to remain up-to-date on their COVID-19 vaccinations. U.S. Northrop Grumman employees may be required, in the future, to be vaccinated or have an approved disability/medical or religious accommodation, pursuant to future court decisions and/or government action on the currently stayed federal contractor vaccine mandate under Executive Order 14042 https://www.saferfederalworkforce.gov/contractors/.

Northrop Grumman is committed to hiring and retaining a diverse workforce. We are proud to be an Equal Opportunity/Affirmative Action Employer, making decisions without regard to race, color, religion, creed, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, marital status, national origin, age, veteran status, disability, or any other protected class. For our complete EEO/AA and Pay Transparency statement, please visit http://www.northropgrumman.com/EEO. U.S. Citizenship is required for most positions.