Sr. Principal System Engineer - NATO IFC Lead

RELOCATION ASSISTANCE: Relocation assistance may be available CLEARANCE REQUIRED FOR START: No CLEARANCE TYPE: Top 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. 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 Systems Engineer to join our team of qualified, diverse individuals within our Systems Engineering organization, located in Rancho Bernardo, CA. In this role, you will perform as an Integrated Functional Capability (IFC) Lead for the NATO Business Area and will be responsible for leading a diverse engineering team to provide imaginative, technical solutions to a wide range of difficult problems. This role is responsible for defining, controlling, and certifying system interfaces; ensuring that interface baselines are technically sound, well documented, and fully integrated to drive IFC strategy supporting new capability insertion. The IFC Lead partners closely with Systems Engineering, Software, Hardware, Integration & Test, Safety, and Cyber to reduce integration risk and enable predictable, high-quality program execution. You will be working across the entire spectrum of the Systems Engineering V-Model, and will support SE disciplines including requirements development, use case development, capability (hardware and software) development, integration planning, lab integration, test planning, formal test, and verification. Essential Functions • Serve as the technical authority for IFC on the program, owning the interface baseline across allocated subsystems and external stakeholders. • Define and execute the IFC certification process for software and hardware builds, including planning, verification, and formal approval. • Lead and/or chair IFC-related meetings (e.g., IFC Daily Execution, IFC Certification Reviews) • Evaluate Engineering Change Proposals (ECPs), change requests, and new capability insertions for IFC impacts; provide clear recommendations to program leadership and configuration control boards. • Develop a strategic IFC roadmap for the program/mission area, aligning interface evolution with planned capability increments. • Lead root-cause investigations for IFC-related anomalies in lab and field environments; drive