Senior Principal Project Manager – Staffing Lead

About the role

Description

Northrop Grumman Aeronautics Systems is seeking a Senior Principal Project Manager – Staffing Lead to support the RQ-4 organization in Rancho Bernardo, California. This position will serve as a central point of coordination for workforce planning, staffing integration, reporting, and resource-management activities.

The successful candidate will be a proactive, organized self-starter with experience in workforce planning, project management, staffing operations, resource management, or data analysis. The role requires strong cross-functional coordination, analytical, communication, and executive-presentation skills.

Key Responsibilities

• Lead workforce planning and staffing integration across program, functional, finance, human resources, and talent acquisition organizations.
• Maintain an integrated staffing plan and coordinate mitigation strategies for staffing gaps, surpluses, critical-skill shortages, single points of failure, and aging vacancies.
• Coordinate position and requisition activities, including creation, activation, candidate tracking, status reconciliation, and closure.
• Consolidate workforce forecasts, requisition status, staffing demand, and resource data into a consistent staffing picture for program leadership.
• Develop and maintain dashboards, metrics, reports, and executive-level presentations that connect staffing status to cost, schedule, technical performance, and program priorities.
• Lead recurring staffing and resource reviews, including preparing review packages, presenting workforce risks and opportunities, documenting decisions, and tracking actions through closure.
• Evaluate workforce skill mix and labor-category alignment against contractual requirements, staffing plans, and program baselines.
• Partner with functional leadership, finance, human resources, talent acquisition, and program teams to address staffing misalignments and balance cost, capability, and schedule needs.
• Work with integrated teams to identify, assess, and mitigate staffing-related risks and opportunities, including skill gaps, coverage risks, hiring delays, and resource constraints.
• Maintain accurate near-term and long-range staffing forecasts aligned with program priorities and changing business needs.
• Improve staffing processes, reporting methods, data quality, and cycle times through standardization, automation, and effective use of workforce-management tools.
• Advise senior management on workforce strategy, staffing trade-offs, resource scenarios, and mitigation options.

Basic Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree and at least 8 years of relevant military or professional experience in areas such as workforce planning, staffing, resource management, project management, business operations, program operations, or data analytics; OR
• Master’s degree and at least 6 years of relevant military or professional experience in these or related areas; Experience supporting workforce planning, staffing coordination, resource management, requisition management, project management, operations, or data analytics; OR
• Doctoral degree and at least 4 years of relevant military or professional experience in these or related areas; Experience supporting workforce planning, staffing coordination, resource management, requisition management, project management, operations, or data analytics.
• Experience collecting, reconciling, analyzing, and presenting workforce or resource data from multiple sources.
• Ability to develop clear reports, dashboards, metrics, and presentations for leadership audiences.
• Strong organizational, communication, analytical, and cross-functional collaboration skills.
• Ability to work full-time onsite in Rancho Bernardo, California.
• Must have the ability to obtain a US Government Secret or higher clearance (with a background investigation completed within the last 6 years or currently enrolled into Continuous Evaluation).

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience using workforce-planning, applicant-tracking, resource-management, business-intelligence, reporting, or data-visualization tools.
• Experience supporting staffing or resource planning in aerospace, manufacturing, engineering, technology, government contracting, or another complex or regulated environment.
• Experience coordinating staffing across multiple functions, teams, projects, or geographic locations.
• Demonstrated success improving staffing processes, reporting accuracy, hiring cycle times, resource utilization, or workforce metrics.
• Experience evaluating staffing impacts to cost, schedule, technical performance, and operational objectives.
• Experience developing and presenting recommendations to senior leaders or executive-level audiences.
• Experience with scenario planning, workforce forecasting, risk management, or resource optimization.