Principal / Sr. Principal Engineer Reliability

RELOCATION ASSISTANCE: No relocation assistance available
CLEARANCE REQUIRED FOR START: No
CLEARANCE TYPE: Secret
TRAVEL: No

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 Weapons Systems is currently seeking Principal Reliability Engineer 3 or Sr. Principal Reliability Engineer 4 for our Elkton, Maryland location.

The Northrop Grumman Propulsion Systems and Controls (PS&C) facility in Elkton, Maryland began solid-propellant rocket operations in 1948. Today, the Elkton PS&C facility designs, develops, and produces solid-propellant propulsion and ordnance systems in programs professionally managed for a wide variety of Government and commercial customers. The facility also serves as the hub for offsite engineering and test facilities in Ronkonkoma, NY, Palm Beach Gardens, FL and San Jose, CA.

Job Summary:

As Principal Reliability Engineer 3 or Sr. Principal Reliability Engineer 4, you will provide reliability engineering leadership for the Elkton propulsion manufacturing campus, with a primary focus on improving the availability, maintainability, safety, and lifecycle performance of facilities infrastructure, utilities, manufacturing support systems, and critical plant assets.

You will develop and implement data-driven reliability programs that reduce unplanned downtime, identify and mitigate failure risks, optimize preventive and predictive maintenance strategies, and support informed capital-replacement decisions. This role will work closely with facilities engineering, maintenance, manufacturing, EHS, quality, operations, program management, and external suppliers to ensure that facility systems consistently meet operational and mission requirements.

You will blend reliability analysis, field investigation, statistical methods, and practical engineering judgment to:

• Lead reliability and maintainability studies for facility systems, utilities, equipment, and infrastructure.
• Develop and improve reliability-centered maintenance and preventive-maintenance programs.
• Analyze equipment performance, work-order history, process-control data, and failure reports to identify systemic risks.
• Support capital planning, equipment selection, design reviews, commissioning, and lifecycle-cost decisions.
• Drive corrective actions and continuous improvement across facilities and maintenance operations.

This role requires effective communication of technical findings and recommendations to engineering teams, maintenance personnel, operations leaders, senior site leadership, contractors, and customers.

Core Technical Responsibilities:

• Reliability Program Development and Leadership
  • Develop, coordinate, and implement reliability engineering programs for facilities systems, utilities, equipment, and infrastructure.
  • Establish reliability objectives, performance measures, and improvement plans aligned with operational, customer, safety, and regulatory requirements.
  • Develop reliability strategies for critical assets, including electrical distribution, HVAC, compressed air, water systems, process support equipment, fire protection, building systems, and other facility infrastructure.
  • Support the development of asset criticality rankings based on safety, mission impact, production impact, environmental risk, maintainability, and lifecycle cost.
  • Serve as a technical resource for reliability methods, failure analysis, maintenance optimization, and asset-management decisions.
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  • Reliability and Maintainability Analysis
    • Conduct Failure Modes and Effects Analyses (FMEA/FMECA), fault-tree analyses, criticality analyses, and other structured reliability assessments for facility systems and equipment.
    • Develop reliability and maintainability allocations, predictions, and performance targets where appropriate for major facility systems and capital projects.
    • Analyze preliminary facility plans, equipment selections, and design concepts to identify potential reliability, maintainability, safety, and lifecycle-cost risks.
    • Recommend design changes, redundancy, monitoring methods, spare-parts strategies, or maintenance approaches to improve system reliability.
    • Evaluate the effect of system configuration, operating conditions, environmental factors, installation quality, and maintenance practices on asset performance.
  • Data Analysis, Statistical Methods, and Performance Monitoring
    • Compile and analyze CMMS work-order data, preventive-maintenance compliance, equipment history, downtime records, condition-monitoring results, process-control statistics, and failure reports.
    • Identify trends and variables that may contribute to recurring failures, reduced availability, excessive maintenance, or increased operating cost.
    • Develop reliability dashboards and key performance indicators, including mean time between failures, mean time to repair, availability, planned-to-unplanned work, repeat failures, PM effectiveness, and maintenance backlog.
    • Apply statistical methods, trend analysis, and design-of-experiment concepts as appropriate to investigate reliability problems and validate corrective actions.
    • Develop or maintain mathematical and analytical models to identify assets, systems, or processes with excessive failure risk.
    • Present technical findings and recommendations clearly to technical and nontechnical audiences.
  • FMEA, Root Cause, and Corrective Action
    • Lead or support root-cause analysis, failure investigations, and corrective-action activities for facility and equipment failures.
    • Support the site’s failure reporting, analysis, and corrective-action processes, including documentation of failure modes, contributing causes, containment actions, and permanent corrective actions.
    • Verify that corrective measures address the underlying failure mechanism and meet acceptable reliability, maintainability, safety, and operational standards.
    • Track corrective actions through closure and assess whether implemented actions produce sustained improvement.
    • Develop lessons learned and update maintenance procedures, asset strategies, design standards, and CMMS knowledge records based on completed investigations.
  • Reliability - Centered Maintenance and CMMS
    • Develop, implement, and improve Reliability-Centered Maintenance (RCM) strategies for critical facilities assets.
    • Review preventive-maintenance tasks, frequencies, job plans, and inspection methods to eliminate ineffective work and improve failure prevention.
    • Integrate predictive-maintenance techniques such as vibration analysis, infrared thermography, oil analysis, ultrasonic inspection, electrical testing, and condition monitoring where appropriate.
    • Define work-order requirements, failure codes, asset hierarchies, failure-mode libraries, and data-quality standards within the CMMS.
    • Analyze PM compliance, overdue work, repeat work orders, emergency maintenance, and maintenance-related downtime to identify improvement opportunities.
    • Recommend spare-parts stocking levels and obsolescence strategies based on criticality, failure history, lead time, repairability, and business impact.
  • Capital Projects, Design Reviews, and Commissioning
    • Participate in facilities capital projects from concept through closeout to ensure reliability, maintainability, operability, and lifecycle-cost requirements are addressed.
    • Review design concepts, equipment specifications, contractor submittals, commissioning plans, and acceptance-test procedures for reliability risks.
    • Provide reliability requirements for new equipment and facility systems, including maintainability access, condition monitoring, redundancy, spare capacity, maintainable design, and documentation.
    • Support equipment qualification, factory acceptance testing, site acceptance testing, functional testing, and performance verification.
    • Evaluate proposed equipment replacements, upgrades, and modifications using lifecycle-cost, risk, reliability, and maintainability analyses.
    • Support post-installation performance reviews and verify that reliability objectives are achieved after turnover.
  • Facilities Engineering and Cross-Disciplinary Support
    • Work with electrical, mechanical, controls, civil, structural, environmental, maintenance, and construction personnel to develop integrated reliability solutions.
    • Support reliability assessments for electrical distribution, HVAC, fire protection, automation, process utilities, buildings, and other facility systems.
    • Provide technical input to engineering standards, equipment specifications, operating procedures, maintenance instructions, and management-of-change activities.
    • Coordinate with manufacturing and operations teams to understand equipment operating demands, production constraints, and mission-critical requirements.
    • Support facility condition assessments, asset-life evaluations, obsolescence reviews, and infrastructure renewal planning.
  • Safety, Compliance, and Risk Management
    • Ensure reliability recommendations support compliance with OSHA, NFPA, HOPs/HAZOPs, PSM, applicable environmental requirements, local building codes, and site procedures.
    • Incorporate process safety, electrical safety, fire protection, hazardous-location considerations, and human-safety factors into reliability analyses.
    • Support hazard assessments, incident investigations, audit responses, and corrective-action plans involving facilities systems or equipment.
    • Identify reliability risks that could affect personnel safety, energetic operations, environmental compliance, production continuity, or customer commitments.
    • Maintain appropriate technical documentation, analysis records, assumptions, and traceability for reliability recommendations.
  • Continuous Improvement and Technical Leadership
    • Lead or support Kaizen, Lean, Six Sigma, and other continuous-improvement activities focused on asset reliability, maintenance effectiveness, and operational performance.
    • Develop and deliver training on reliability methods, failure reporting, root-cause analysis, FMEA, RCM, CMMS data quality, and predictive maintenance.
    • Mentor engineers, technicians, maintenance personnel, and other staff in reliability practices and structured problem solving.
    • Serve as a technical contact for reliability matters with internal organizations, contractors, suppliers, customers, and government stakeholders.
    • At the Sr. Principal level, provide technical direction for major reliability initiatives, influence sitewide asset-management strategy, and serve as the primary technical contact for complex reliability projects.
• This requisition may be filled with either Principal Reliability Engineer 3 or Sr. Principal Reliability Engineer 4, depending on years of experience and qualifications.Basic Qualifications Principal Reliability Engineer 3:
  • Bachelor’s degree in Reliability Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Industrial Engineering, Facilities Engineering, or a related STEM discipline with a minimum of 5 years of relevant experience; or a master’s degree with 3 years of relevant experience; or a Ph.D. with 1 year of relevant experience.
  • Demonstrated experience in reliability, maintainability, asset management, facilities engineering, industrial engineering, maintenance engineering, or a closely related discipline.
  • Experience performing or supporting FMEA/FMECA, root-cause analysis, fault-tree analysis, criticality analysis, RCM, or similar reliability methods.
  • Experience analyzing equipment performance, maintenance history, failure data, downtime, or CMMS work-order information.
  • Ability to develop practical technical solutions to complex reliability and maintainability problems.
  • Understanding of industrial facility systems, equipment failure modes, maintenance strategies, and asset lifecycle considerations.
  • Ability to communicate technical approaches, findings, risks, and recommendations clearly in written and oral formats.
  • Demonstrated ability to work with engineering, maintenance, operations, EHS, quality, procurement, finance, contractors, and suppliers.
  • Ability to work independently under general direction, determine appropriate analytical approaches, and complete assignments in accordance with program and site objectives.
  • Proficiency with Microsoft Office Suite; experience with CMMS, reliability-analysis, statistical-analysis, or data-visualization tools.
  • Must be able to obtain a DoD Secret clearance; U.S. Citizenship is a prerequisite.
  • Ability to travel up to 10% of the time to meet customers and vendors.
• Basic Qualifications Sr. Principal Reliability Engineer 4:
  • Bachelor’s degree in Reliability Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Industrial Engineering, Facilities Engineering, or a related STEM discipline with a minimum of 8 years of relevant experience; or a master’s degree with 6 years of relevant experience; or a Ph.D. with 4 years of relevant experience.
  • Extensive experience developing and implementing reliability, maintainability, asset-management, maintenance-optimization, or facilities-reliability programs.
  • Demonstrated expertise with FMEA/FMECA, RCM, root-cause analysis, fault-tree analysis, criticality analysis, reliability prediction, statistical analysis, or related reliability methods.
  • Proven experience analyzing complex facility systems, industrial equipment, utilities, infrastructure, or manufacturing-support assets.
  • Experience leading multidisciplinary reliability investigations and implementing corrective actions that improve availability, maintainability, safety, cost, or operational performance.
  • Demonstrated ability to develop reliability requirements and influence equipment selection, facility design, commissioning, maintenance strategy, and capital-replacement decisions.
  • Experience developing reliability dashboards, asset-performance metrics, maintenance strategies, lifecycle-cost assessments, and executive-level technical briefings.
  • Proven ability to work independently with substantial discretion and latitude in establishing technical objectives and analytical approaches.
  • Demonstrated ability to serve as a technical lead or project leader and to influence engineering, maintenance, operations, suppliers, contractors, and senior stakeholders.
  • Strong written, verbal, and presentation skills, including the ability to explain complex reliability concepts to technical and nontechnical audiences.
  • Experience mentoring engineers, technicians, and maintenance personnel in reliability methods and structured problem solving.
  • Proficiency with Microsoft Office Suite and experience using CMMS, reliability-analysis, statistical-analysis, or asset-management tools.
  • Must be able to obtain a DoD Secret clearance; U.S. Citizenship is a prerequisite.
  • Ability to travel up to 10% of the time to meet customers and vendors.
• Preferred Qualifications:
  • Master’s degree in Reliability Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Industrial Engineering, Facilities Engineering, or a related STEM discipline.
  • Certified Reliability Engineer (CRE), Certified Maintenance and Reliability Professional (CMRP), or comparable professional certification.
  • Professional Engineer (P.E.) license or Engineer-in-Training (E.I.T.) certification.
  • Experience supporting aerospace, defense, propulsion, energetic-materials, chemical-processing, high-hazard, or other highly regulated manufacturing environments.
  • Experience with RCM2, FMEA/FMECA, FRACAS, fault-tree analysis, Weibull analysis, life-data analysis, Monte Carlo analysis, or reliability prediction.
  • Experience with industrial reliability and asset-management software, CMMS platforms, statistical tools, or data-visualization applications.
  • Knowledge of relevant reliability and maintenance standards, including MIL-HDBK-338, MIL-HDBK-217, SAE JA1011/JA1012, ISO 55000, or comparable standards.
  • Experience with predictive-maintenance technologies, including vibration analysis, infrared thermography, oil analysis, ultrasound, electrical testing, or condition monitoring.
  • Experience developing spare-parts strategies, obsolescence plans, asset-criticality models, or lifecycle-cost analyses.
  • Lean, Six Sigma, Kaizen, or other continuous-improvement certification.
  • Experience with Microsoft Project, Power BI, SharePoint, or similar project and reporting tools.
  • Active DoD Secret clearance.
• This position falls under a Federal Explosives License issued by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) for this location. Candidates hired into this role will be required to complete and submit an Employee Possessor Questionnaire to ATF for approval to be a possessor. This role places you at the heart of next‑generation propulsion systems that power national defense and space exploration. You will work with cutting‑edge manufacturing processes, high‑energy test cells and classified R&D laboratories, all while enjoying the lifestyle benefits of the Upper Chesapeake Bay—trails, water recreation, historic towns and a short commute to both Philadelphia and Baltimore. Northrop Grumman offers a global talent network, robust leadership‑development programs and access to advanced technical training, providing a clear path for career growth and personal fulfillment.If you are a technically accomplished, data‑driven facilities leader eager to drive reliability, sustainability and mission success for a world‑class propulsion manufacturing campus, we invite you to submit your résumé and a concise cover letter highlighting your most relevant capital‑project and operational achievements.Northrop Grumman is an Equal Opportunity Employer.

Primary Level Salary Range: $98,900.00 - $148,300.00
Secondary Level Salary Range: $123,400.00 - $185,000.00
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.