Northrop Grumman Principal Electrical Engineer interview questions

Apply online and then meet for in-person interview. 30 min with director and then a panel interview for an hour. In-person interview lasted about 60 minutes and the team was absolutely enjoyable. Easy to converse with them about previous experiences and opportunities they had available. Certainly was a conversation of respect and learning!

I was called for an on-site interview about 1 month after I applied. I had a panel interview with 8 managers, each covering a different program. This was mostly them asking about prior experience. After that, I sat down with a Sr. Director who gave me a random engineering drawing and asked me what I thought it was, what I thought certain parts of it did, etc. The position was more of a Systems level job, not a design level job, so I was surprised. I asked some questions and fumbled through it miserably. He said he was mostly trying to see how I would go about figuring it out, what questions I would ask, and if I was going to BS him. Last, I met with an HR person who immediately wanted to talk money, which I was not expecting. I had done my homework on average salaries for the level and years of experience in the Chandler area. She immediately started with HIGH PRESSURE METHODS to talk me down and to lowball me. I have seen the salaries on Glassdoor, and other sites, as well as spoken to people that have we worked for them. They consistently come in between $10k to $20k too low. They did the same to me. Know that their position levels DO NOT line up with other companies in the area or in aerospace. A Principal level here is considered a Senior level everywhere else, and so forth with other positions. The pay DOES line up with other companies in the area if you were to line it up with the Senior level jobs, but NG calling it a Principal position screws up your ability to line up the salaries. They need to change the job titles to line up with industry. For example, NG Principal level wants a bachelor's plus 7 years experience (which is a Sr. in other companies), and 10 years experience for a Sr. Principal Engineer. I think this is salary disparity is specific to NG jobs related to Orbital Sciences/Orbital ATK position names from BEFORE NG bought them. Once NG changes the job names to line up with the rest of NG, it won't be an issue any longer.