Sr Principal Engineer RF Microwave Design

NGMS engineers share a great sense of pride knowing their contributions have a direct effect on the safety and security of the country and its allies. Our culture thrives on intellectual curiosity, cognitive diversity, teamwork, and bringing your whole self to work to accomplish the mission while learning and having fun along the way.
Our department is fertile ground for all experience levels to become part of our growing team and contribute to our goals. The department offers opportunities to grow on a technical track both broad and deep as well as explore project leadership or management positions. This role will support our F-22 CNI Operating Unit.
Essential Functions:

Act as RDE for Integrated Microwave Assemblies (IMA)

Performing Board Level troubleshooting of Integrated Microwave Assemblies (IMA)

Generating Root Cause and Corrective Actions for escaped production IMA issues

Supporting Global Supply Chain (GSC) with attrition values for IMAs and identifying alternative RF components if necessary for end of life (EOL) parts

Predicting assembly level performance through selecting materials, components, and packaging approaches, RF chain analysis, electromagnetic simulation, data collection and analysis, and other modeling techniques

Evaluate anomalies and assist with the disposition of issues as found

Present technical recommendations to internal and external technical leadership

Direct interaction with IMA suppliers to keep production schedule on track and flowing that information back to the engineering and leadership team.

Perform requirements and design traceability for defects

Perform hands-on and support Integration within Test environment

THIS ROLE IS ON-SITE


Basic Qualifications:

Sr. principal RF Microwave Design Engineer: Bachelor Degree in Electrical Engineering or comparable STEM degree minimum of 8 years of relevant engineering experience (6+ years with MS degree; or 3+ years with PhD)

Proficient in RF/Microwave and mixed signal circuit design, schematic capture, and PWB/board layout

Completed and/or led multiple board designs from schematic capture to board release

Experience in test and troubleshooting complex mixed signal CCAs

Ability to provide solutions to a broad variety of RF/Microwave design and test related problems of complex difficulty

Expert proficiency with industry standard RF/Microwave modeling, simulation and printed circuit board design tools (e.g. Keysight ADS, Xpedition, Altium)

Hands-on experience designing and releasing RF/microwave CCAs, power amplifiers, and transceiver subsystems.

Demonstrated Technical Team Leadership and ability to work on multi-discipline engineering teams and communicate clearly within integrated product team leads

Easily adapt to design challenges to meet program goals and deadlines

US Citizenship is required

Ability to obtain and maintain a DoD secret clearance

Ability to obtain and maintain a Special Access Program clearance to meet business needs

Preferred Qualifications:

Active Top Secret / SCI security clearance

Proficient with Python-based automation tools for device calibration, Ethernet regression testing, BOM generation, and data visualization.

Proficient with LabVIEW-based ATE Features for improving production throughput

Familiar with ESS routine and temperature chamber

Signal integrity analysis (SERDES, Bit error rates, jitter components and contributors, board to board analysis)

Expertise in working with receiver/exciters, conducting RF performance analysis, and implementing digital beamforming

High-speed digital circuit design experience

Experience in integrating FPGA/Digital controls on the bench (no VHDL experience required)

Understanding of basic signal processing

RF budgeting, frequency planning, RF chain analysis and modeling

Component selection and/or custom component requirements flow down and trades

Ceramic and organic printed circuit board materials, design, fabrication, and assembly processes

Integrated Circuit packaging techniques including chip-and-wire, QFN, flip-chip

Product life cycle support from concept through production support

Designing for high reliability, space requirements and environments

* AESA / phased array, Radar, SIGINT, or SATCOM experience

Primary Level Salary Range: $137,400.00 - $206,000.00The 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.

Client-provided location(s): San Diego, CA

Job ID: NorthropGrumman-R10210238

Employment Type: OTHER

Posted: 2025-10-07T20:16:17