Staff Computer Systems / Processor Architect

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.

The Northrop Grumman Mission Systems (NGMS) Advanced Processing Solutions pushes the boundaries of innovation.  It redefines the leading edge of exotic new technologies and drives advancements in the sciences.  One of our most challenging new fields is Transformational Computing, which combines the unique properties of superconductivity and quantum mechanics to develop radical new energy-efficient computing systems. Our team is chartered with providing the skills to transform computing beyond Moore’s Law, advancing development of computer architectures, processing/memory subsystems, and large scale high performance computing systems.  You will be part of a team alongside a broad array of scientists and engineers working to make these processing solutions a reality.

The candidate will architect an extremely latency-sensitive supercomputer using FPGAs and potentially custom ASICs.  This includes the design of the individual processing elements as well as the architecture of the high performance network that will be used to tie the processing elements together.

Experience in developing and implementing complex computing systems using state of the art approaches to high performance parallel processing is highly desired.  Candidates must be comfortable working in a research environment with constantly shifting priorities and requirements as new fundamental principles are uncovered. This role will be interacting directly with the customer in the creation, capture, and execution of programs in Transformational Computing.

Job Responsibilities:

• Designing instruction sets and commands for a massively parallel, distributed, high-performance computer system.
• Designing data flow pathways for moving data within a massively parallel system efficiently and reliably.
• Developing detailed models of the high performance computer system capable of accurately projecting performance.
• Optimizing parallel computing architectures for performance, power, and area on purpose built machines.
• Analyzing and optimizing traffic patterns in complex, high performance computer networks.
• Working with Systems Engineering and Digital Design teams to ensure that the architecture meets requirements and is implemented correctly on an FPGA or ASIC platform.
• Interacting with customers, both internal and external, to convey architecture principles and concepts.
• Efficient and effective communication of design and architecture to digital designers for implementation, simulation, and synthesis.

This position requires the candidate to report on-site at our Advanced Technologies Laboratory (ATL) in Linthicum, MD.

Basic Qualifications for a Staff Processor Architect:

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, Electrical Engineering, or other relevant technology field with 14 years of relevant experience (12 years with an MS; 9 with a PhD).
• Must be familiar with VHDL, Verilog, or SystemVerilog.
• Must be familiar with C/C++ and Python.
• Previous hardware or software design experience is required.
• Experience developing novel computer architectures is required.
• Must be a US Citizen and must have or be able to obtain and maintain a Full Top Secret/SCI security clearance with Polygraph.

Preferred Qualifications:

• Extensive experience developing and utilizing detailed computer architecture simulations.
• Extensive experience interpreting complex data and performing trade-off analysis.
• Experience in High Performance Computing (HPC) and/or High Performance Networks (HPNs).
• Experience directing teams of digital designers.
• Experience creating detailed plans of execution and schedules for complex projects.
• A Master’s Degree or PhD in a related field is highly desirable.
• Active Full Top Secret/SCI security clearance with Polygraph

Salary Range: $169,100 USD - $253,700 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.