Senior Principal Engineer - Guidance Navigation Control (GNC)

RELOCATION ASSISTANCE: Relocation assistance may be available

CLEARANCE REQUIRED FOR START: Yes

CLEARANCE TYPE: Secret

TRAVEL: Yes, 10% of the Time

Description

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 Aeronautics Systems has an opening for a Senior Principal Engineer - Guidance Navigation Controls to join our team of qualified, diverse individuals within our South Bay Vehicle Engineering organization.  This position is located in Rancho Bernardo, CA or El Segundo, CA.

The selected candidate should thrive in a fast-paced work environment with high expectations and collaborative/team settings across all levels. This is a dynamic and fun organization involved in deploying forward-leaning avionics, guidance, navigation, and control systems for developmental concepts for air vehicles, weapons, and many more platforms.

Primary Duties and Responsibilities:

• Support, research, and develop flight control algorithms for manned and unmanned air vehicles.
• Design, develop, implement, verify, and test algorithms, software, and simulation tools to perform guidance, navigation, and control (GNC) of autonomous unmanned aircraft.
• Develop control laws to meet air vehicle performance, flying qualities, and stability margin requirements both on ground and in flight.
• Design outer and inner loop control laws and associated logic and autonomy functions.
• Develop air vehicle system linear and non-linear dynamic simulation models and integrate models into software and hardware-in-the-loop simulation environments.
• Perform performance and flying qualities analysis.
• Support non-linear simulation and hardware-in-the-loop lab testing.
• Support flight test activities and analyze air vehicle flight test data.

Basic Qualifications:

• Bachelor's degree in a relevant Science, Technology, Engineering or Mathematics (STEM) discipline 8 years of experience; OR Master’s degree in a relevant STEM discipline with 6 years of experience; OR a PhD in a relevant STEM discipline with 4 years of experience.
• Experience with all of the following:
  • Fixed-wing aircraft flight dynamics.
  • Using linear control principles and tools to design feedback control systems
  • Analyzing non-linear simulations of aircraft closed-loop dynamics
  • Designing autopilot functions
  • Outer/inner loop control law performance requirements
  • Using MATLAB to create, process, analyze, and visually represent data
  • Using Simulink to model dynamic systems and Stateflow Modeling
  • Logic, modes, and states for autonomous aircraft
  • C/C++ and Python programming
• A current, active in-scope US Government Secret clearance or higher, with the ability to obtain Special Program Access (SAP).

Preferred Qualifications:

• Experience with crewed/uncrewed teaming algorithms such as formation flight, hold patterns.
• Experience with in-flight routing behaviors for Sense and Avoid, and 4D keep out/keep in zones, terminal guidance
• Experience with autonomy algorithms (Autonomous Taxi/ Take Off And Landing, etc.) for driving control laws.
• Experience with Lua Script programming.
• Working knowledge of SAE-94910 performance requirements.

Primary Level Salary Range: $142,200.00 - $213,400.00

The above salary range represents a general guideline; however, Northrop Grumman considers a number of factors when determining base salary offers such as the scope and responsibilities of the position and the candidate's experience, education, skills and current market conditions.

Depending on the position, employees may be eligible for overtime, shift differential, and 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 application period for the job is estimated to be 20 days from the job posting date. However, this timeline may be shortened or extended depending on business needs and the availability of qualified candidates.

Northrop Grumman is an Equal Opportunity 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 and pay transparency statement, please visit http://www.northropgrumman.com/EEO. U.S. Citizenship is required for all positions with a government clearance and certain other restricted positions.