Staff Engineer Jobs
Staff Engineer jobs are open across technology, fintech, healthtech, and enterprise software, from senior engineer to principal and distinguished levels, with specializations in platform engineering, distributed systems, and developer experience. Find a role that fits from the openings below and apply directly.
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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 Space Systems—Missile Defense Integration offers an excellent opportunity for a Staff Systems Engineer – Systems Analyst (26-348) to join our team of skilled and diverse professionals. Based in Colorado Springs, CO, this role is essential to supporting the U.S. President, the Secretary of Defense, and combatant commanders at the strategic, regional, and operational levels.
This position does not provide relocation assistance and requires on-site work with no remote options.
Position Overview:
The C2BMC program is a vital element of the Missile Defense System, offering a crucial operational platform that allows the U.S. President, the Secretary of Defense, and Combatant Commanders at various levels to plan missile defense strategies, monitor ongoing operations, and control networked sensors and weapon systems to meet global and regional mission goals. It provides a layered missile defense response that adapts across all ranges and flight phases, acting as a force multiplier by integrating and synchronizing sensors and weapon systems worldwide and locally to maximize performance. C2BMC also plays a key role in testing the missile defense system's current and future capabilities. The ideal candidate will collaborate with the C2BMC Regional Applications Analysis team and the Chief Analyst. We seek a strategic thinker with strong technical skills, a track record of impactful analysis programs, and a passion for strengthening U.S. missile defense for this significant position.
Essential Functions:
- Define and execute the analytical roadmap for C2BMC software verification, validation, and performance optimization across development, testing, and operational phases
- Lead complex, multidisciplinary root-cause investigations into software behavior, sensor/weapon integration anomalies, and emergent system-of-systems issues
- Develop corrective action plans and monitor resolution progress
- Serve as the primary liaison among C2BMC engineers, DoD senior leaders, test ranges, and external partners
- Facilitate technical reviews, briefing packages, and decision-making forums
- Guide and support junior analysts and software engineers as a mentor and coach
- Establish best-practice standards for data analytics, model-based systems engineering, and reproducible research
- Coordinate analysis deliverables with missile defense acquisition milestones
- Contribute to Integrated Product Teams and capture technical risk metrics for program reporting
Basic Qualifications:
Please list your current security clearance and IAT or relevant certifications on your resume, if applicable.
- A Bachelor’s Degree in STEM Computer Science, Software Engineering, Systems Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Applied Mathematics, Physics, or a STEM-related field from an accredited university, along with 12 years of experience; or a Master’s degree (preferred) in a related field with 10 years of relevant work experience; or a PhD in a related discipline with 8 years of relevant work experience
- Applicants must have a current, active in-scope DoD-issued Secret security clearance at the time of application, which is required to start, with the ability to obtain Top Secret clearance
- Willingness to travel 10% of the time for business needs
- Requires progressive experience in systems analysis, software verification, or model-based analysis of complex defense-grade C2, sensor, or weapon systems
- Demonstrated success in delivering authoritative analysis reports for large-scale, real-time systems, covering performance, reliability, and functional behavior
- Proficient in MATLAB at an expert level or in similar languages like Python (NumPy, Pandas, Matplotlib)
- Excellent analytical abilities and the ability to clearly present complex technical concepts to engineers, stakeholders, and customers
- Knowledge of systems and software engineering processes, principles, and lifecycles
- Mastery of Linux command line, Bash scripting, and CI/CD pipelines (GitLab and Jenkins)
- Excellent written and verbal communication skills
- Comfortable briefing senior DoD officials, executives, and technical peers
- Demonstrated mentorship of junior staff and the ability to influence decisions in a fast-paced environment
Preferred Qualifications:
- Applicants with a current, active in-scope DoD-issued Top Secret security clearance at the time of application are highly preferred
- Master’s Degree in Systems Engineering is highly preferred
- Graduate Certificate: Model-Based Systems Engineering (Ex: Stevens, Caltech, UCSD, USC, GWU, INCOSE cohort, etc)
- Certification: INCOSE Certified Systems Engineering Professional (CSEP) Certification
- Certification: Object Management Group Certified Systems Modeling Professional - Model Builder Intermediate (OCSMP - MBI)
- Extensive experience in missile defense battle management architectures, IR/RF sensor tracking, intercept modeling, and space domain awareness
- Strong mathematical background in probability theory, stochastic processes, control theory, and multibody dynamics
- Experience working within Agile Scrum frameworks.
- Hands-on experience with JIRA, Confluence, and secure DevSecOps practices
- Led development of automated assessment suites for real-time C2 software, including hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) and software-in-the-loop (SIL) environments
- Designed reusable analysis libraries, parsers, and data ingestion pipelines using Python, MATLAB, or Java
- Contributed to DoD-approved or open-source toolsets
- Expertise in object-oriented design, design patterns, and performance-tuned SQL/NoSQL database queries
- Advanced data science skills, including statistical modeling, time-series analysis, machine learning, and interactive visualization (e.g., Plotly, D3.js)
- Publications, technical reports, or patents about missile defense analytics, C2 architecture, or advanced data analysis techniques
What We Can Offer You:
Northrop Grumman provides a comprehensive benefits package and a supportive work environment that encourages your growth, benefiting both employees and the company. The benefits are flexible and customizable, enabling you to choose options that suit your individual and family needs. Your benefits will include the following:
- Health Plan
- Savings Plan
- Paid Time Off
- Education Assistance
- Training and Development
- Flexible Work Arrangements
https://benefits.northropgrumman.com/us/en2/BenefitsOverview/Pages/default.aspx
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Primary Level Salary Range: $161,000.00 - $241,400.00 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.Staff Engineer Jobs by Experience Level
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Who's Hiring
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What Employers Look For
The qualifications that appear most often in staff engineer jobs.
- 8 or more years of software engineering experience with a strong distributed systems background
- Demonstrated ability to set technical direction across multiple engineering teams or codebases
- Deep expertise in at least one major programming language such as Go, Java, Python, or Rust
- Experience designing and operating large-scale, high-availability production systems
- Strong cross-functional collaboration with product, infrastructure, and engineering leadership
- Bachelor's degree in computer science, software engineering, or a closely related field
Tips for Your Staff Engineer Job Search
Show scope and influence on your resume
Staff engineer roles are evaluated on organizational impact, not just technical output. Rewrite your bullets to show how many teams or systems your decisions affected, not just what you personally built or shipped.
Tailor your resume to the technical pillar
Platform, infrastructure, backend, and developer experience staff roles have different expectations. Read the job description for signals about which pillar it sits in, then front-load your resume with matching depth in that area.
Apply early to roles that fit
Migrate Mate lists staff engineer openings from across the United States in one place, so you can find roles that match and apply directly to each listing.
Filter for company engineering maturity
A staff engineer title means very different things at a Series A startup versus a 10,000-person public company. Look for signals in the job description about team size, architecture complexity, and whether a staff layer already exists before you invest time applying.
Prepare a system design story for interviews
Almost every staff engineer interview includes a large-scale system design exercise. Go in with two or three real examples where you made consequential architectural decisions, can articulate the tradeoffs you rejected, and can explain the longer-term outcome.
Negotiate scope and team structure, not just pay
At the staff level, the reporting structure, the problem space, and whether you have autonomy to set technical direction matter as much as compensation. Ask explicitly about what organizational authority the role carries before you accept.
Staff Engineer Jobs: Frequently Asked Questions
Which companies are hiring the most staff engineers?
The companies hiring the most staff engineers right now include Northrop Grumman, Google, and Lockheed Martin, with the largest share of openings in California, Texas, and New York, based on current listings on Migrate Mate as of August 2026. Demand is highest in companies scaling their platform or developer productivity functions.
How many staff engineer jobs are remote?
About 70% of staff engineer openings are fully remote or hybrid as of August 2026, making it one of the more flexible senior technical roles. Platform engineering, developer experience, and backend infrastructure roles tend to have the highest concentration of remote-eligible positions.
How do you become a staff engineer?
Getting to staff engineer typically requires demonstrating impact well beyond your immediate team. Build a record of driving multi-team technical decisions, not just executing them. Learn to write clearly about architecture and tradeoffs so leadership trusts your judgment. Seek out ambiguous, cross-functional projects where no one else has ownership, and deliver measurable outcomes from them.
Can you get a staff engineer job without prior staff-level experience?
Yes, particularly if you can document senior-level work that already operated at staff scope. Highlight projects where you defined technical strategy for a domain, influenced engineering decisions across teams, or resolved architectural problems with company-wide implications. Smaller companies and high-growth startups are more likely to make this leap with strong candidates who show clear staff-level thinking in interviews.
What does the staff engineer interview process look like?
Most staff engineer interview loops include a recruiter screen, a hiring manager conversation focused on leadership and scope, one or two large-scale system design rounds, a coding or technical depth round, and a cross-functional or behavioral round assessing collaboration and communication. Some companies add a written take-home about a past architectural decision. The process often runs across multiple weeks.
Where can I find and apply to staff engineer jobs?
You can find and apply to staff engineer jobs on Migrate Mate, which lists current openings from across the United States. Find roles that match your background and apply directly to each listing from the page.
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