Sr Principal DevOps Engineer (Fairfax)

RELOCATION ASSISTANCE: Relocation assistance may be available

CLEARANCE REQUIRED FOR START: Yes

CLEARANCE TYPE: SCI

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’s Space Sector is seeking a Sr Principal DevOps Engineer to join our team in Aurora, CO to support on-premises mission systems by operating, maintaining, and incrementally enhancing existing DevOps and platform solutions. The engineer will work within established architectures and standards rather than designing new solutions, focusing on reliability, security, and continuous improvement of current environments. The position can be based in Fairfax, VA.

This position will work a 9/80 schedule, with every other Friday off.

In This Job, You Will

• Operate and maintain existing GitLab CI/CD infrastructure including patching and permissions. Advise on updates to jobs, runners, variables, and approvals to improve stability and throughput.
• Administer Nexus artifact repositories including patching, backups, access management, repository configuration, cleanup/retention policies, and routine health checks.
• Maintain Apache NiFi infrastructure including patching, troubleshooting, performance tuning, and implementing changes defined by senior engineers.
• Support installation and day-to-day operations of Kubernetes on-prem clusters, including patching, storage management, deployments, rollouts/rollbacks, configuration updates, and resource adjustments.
• Maintain and extend monitoring and alerting using Grafana and Prometheus for on-prem infrastructure and applications, including patching, access control, refining dashboards, alert rules, and service onboarding within existing observability patterns.
• Implement incremental improvements to existing DevOps tooling and workflows (e.g., adding tests, improving pipeline stages, automating manual steps) consistent with established designs and security baselines.
• Perform routine incident response and problem resolution for build, deployment, and runtime issues across CI/CD, Kubernetes, Nexus, NiFi, and supporting services.
• Apply existing security and compliance controls across the DevOps toolchain: secrets management, access controls, certificate and credential rotation, image scanning, and log retention in accordance with program requirements.
• Follow formal change management processes, including documenting changes, participating in reviews, and updating runbooks, SOPs, and technical documentation.
• Collaborate with senior engineers, system administrators, and developers to implement improvements and operational changes defined by leads and architects.
• Other duties as assigned

Basic Qualifications

• Bachelor’s in STEM degree with 8 years of professional experience; Master’s in STEM degree with 6 years of professional experience; PhD with 3 years of experience. Will consider an additional 4+ years of experience in lieu of degree.
• Requires an active Top-Secret/Sensitive Compartmented Information (SCI) clearance at time of application
• Must have the ability to obtain and maintain U.S. Government Full Scope Polygraph.
• Relevant DevOps, site reliability, or systems engineering experience.
• Demonstrated experience maintaining GitLab CI/CD in an on-prem environment
• Practical experience administering Nexus repositories
• Experience supporting Apache NiFi infrastructure
• Working knowledge of on-prem Kubernetes operations
• Experience using Grafana and Prometheus in an on-prem context
• Proficiency with Linux systems administration fundamentals and at least one scripting language (e.g., Bash, Python) for automation and operational tasks.
• Familiarity with operating in secure, classified, or highly regulated on-prem environments and adherence to associated processes (security, configuration control, and auditing).
• Strong analytical and troubleshooting skills; ability to methodically diagnose issues across multiple interconnected services.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience using Helm and Rancher
• Familiarity with Infrastructure as Code and configuration management tools (e.g., Terraform, Ansible) for maintaining existing on-prem infrastructure definitions and playbooks.
• Experience with log aggregation and analysis platforms in on-prem environments (e.g., ELK/EFK or similar).
• Experience working within formal change control and release management processes.
• Exposure to microservices running on Kubernetes and related operational patterns (service discovery, scaling, health checks).
• Behavioral Competencies
• Operational ownership: Proactively monitors, maintains, and improves existing on-prem systems and DevOps toolchains.
• Continuous improvement mindset: Identifies and implements incremental enhancements within established architectures and constraints.
• Team collaboration: Works closely with senior engineers, system administrators, security, and development teams to execute defined technical directions.
• Discipline and rigor: Adheres to security, configuration management, and documentation expectations in a classified on-prem environment.

This position is contingent upon the candidate obtaining final clearances and program access(es) within a reasonable period of time as determined by the company.

Working at Northrop Grumman is more than just a paycheck. We offer a comprehensive Total Rewards and benefits package designed to help you thrive at work and in life. For more information on our Total Rewards package, please visit our Total Rewards site.

Northrop Grumman Total Rewards

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 U.S. Citizenship is required for all positions with a government clearance and certain other restricted positions.