Software Center of Technical Excellence Director 2

The Aeronautics Engineering organization is seeking a Director to lead the Software Center of Technical Excellence (CoTE). This key leadership role reports to the Aeronautics Systems (AS) Vice President of the Center of Technical Excellence and is responsible for defining strategy to elevate technical excellence across the Software disciplines.

This position supports all the Aeronautics Systems business divisions, at all of the Aeronautics Systems primary geographic sites including: Melbourne, FL; Palmdale, CA; San Diego, CA; and El Segundo, CA. This position is geographically flexible and can be based out of any one of the 4 locations listed above. Ability to travel as needed (approx. 25%).

The CoTE Director will unite programs, engineers, and technical experts under a shared set of tools, processes, and practices to ensure a consistent, cohesive, and collaborative approach across all AS sector programs. This position partners closely with Chief Engineers, Engineering Integration & Execution (EI&E) Leads, and Strategy, Integration & Operations (SI&O) team to empower, equip, and train Software technical professionals to support current program and capture execution, NCTA efforts, and long-term business needs. 

The Software CoTE Director will deliver sector wide technical capabilities spanning the full product life cycle across the breadth of NGAS Software Capabilities including real-time safety critical and mission critical software, non-real time software applications and tools, On-Prem and Off-Prem Cloud native applications, Infrastructure Software and tools, Modeling and Simulation Software, Artificial Intelligence Software. These capabilities include the application of Air Worthiness, Safety, Nuclear Surety, and Coding standards into our SW architectures, designs, pipelines, and development processes. 

The ideal CoTE Director is an influential connector and trusted steward of their discipline — combining deep technical expertise with a passion for technical training and development, collaboration, and continuous improvement. This leader will collaborate closely with other disciplines, programs, R&AD, Common Products, SIO, CIDO, Mission Assurance, Strategy and Business Development, and other Sector and Corporate Software organizations. 

Responsibilities will include, but are not limited to: 

• Provide leadership and define strategic vision for technical priorities within Software discipline, aligned to long-term sector strategy. 

• Regularly interface with EI&E discipline leads to identify program needs and close gaps in engineering tools, processes, digital solutions, and technical training. 

• Lead the development, deployment, and sustainment of sector-wide engineering tools, standardized processes, digital solutions, and technical training-- ensuring they are relevant, scalable, and interoperable across programs. 

• Oversee and allocate the discipline’s NCTA and indirect budgets to strengthen technical excellence; advance tools, processes, and workforce capabilities; and generate measurable impact on program performance and future competitiveness. 

• Build and sustain a strong Software Community of Practice (CoP), ensuring alignment of sub-CoPs, strategies, and priorities while fostering collaboration across programs and sub-disciplines. 

• Represent the discipline in sector-wide and enterprise-wide technical development efforts related to technical development, technical career pathing, technical training, and critical skills investment. 

• Participate in sector-level talent reviews and succession planning to maintain discipline-wide visibility into talent strengths, gaps, and growth opportunities. 

• Partner with EI&E leads to understand program critical skill needs and collaborate with SI&O to translate skill needs into funded technical training programs and onboarding frameworks. 

• Provide leadership, alignment, and support to NG Fellows within the discipline to advance sector- and enterprise-wide emerging technologies and future workforce capabilities. 

• Contribute technical expertise and process leadership in major proposal reviews, program reviews, independent technical reviews, program stand-up reviews, NCTA and indirect activities, and other sector-wide improvement efforts.  

• Act as a trusted advisor to help resolve technical performance shortfalls through root cause analysis, corrective action planning, long-term verification of improvement. 

• Capture, share, and embed lessons learned and best practices across programs to continuously raise the bar for technical performance. 

Our Leaders at Northrop Grumman live our values daily and encourage our teams to do the same. We do the right thing: upholding the highest ethical standards and facilitating a safe and respectful environment that attracts, retains, and inspires a diverse and engaged team. We do what we promise: holding yourself and others accountable to meet predictable and balanced results. We commit to shared success: operating as OneNG and removing barriers for our teams. Finally, We pioneer: setting a vision that shapes the future and inspires others.

Basic Qualifications: 

• Must have a Bachelor’s of Science degree in a Science, Technology, Engineering or Mathematics (STEM) discipline AND 9 years of related professional/military experience within the Aerospace and Defense industry that includes a background in leadership positions, OR a Master’s of Science degree in a STEM discipline and 7 years of related professional/military experience within the Aerospace and Defense industry that includes a background in leadership positions 

• Minimum 6 years of Software leadership/management experience in an integrated product team environment leading agile development teams 

• Experience working across the total program lifecycle  

• Expertise in establishing engineering standards, tools, and processes at scale. 

• Experience in defining and developing software processes and defining tools in alignment with the DOD Dev*Ops Reference architecture 

• Experience with or exposure to digital design initiatives and solutions  

• Experience with commercial Software licensing models and managing commercial software tool portfolios 

• Knowledge of modern industry practices for developing software defined systems. 

• Experience in Avionics, Vehicle, Systems Engineering, Global Supply Chain, and Test processes and tools where they overlap and/or are adjacent to Software processes and tools.   (eg. Software defined LRUs, Software Configuration Management, Software Integration and Test, Software procurement, auto-generated GNC Software.)  

• Must have an active DoD Secret clearance that is in scope or currently enrolled in continuous evaluation, with the ability to obtain and maintain a Top Secret/SCI clearance as determined by business needs

• Must be able to attain and maintain Special Program Access (PAR) within a reasonable amount of time as determined by business needs

Preferred Qualifications: 

• Experience developing and integrating Artificial Intelligence (AI) into Agile continuous integration/continuous deployment (CI/CD) pipelines to automate the testing or deployment of software-defined systems.

• Current Special Program Access (PAR).

• MS or MBA degree 

• Program management experience 

• Continuous improvement mindset with experience leading process optimization. 

• Strategic, systems-level thinker who can build alignment across functional and program boundaries.