Beautiful Teams

Chapter 13. Defending the Free World

Neil Siegel

Few jobs in the software industry are bigger than the chief engineer of Northrop Grumman's 35,000-person Information Systems sector, one of the largest defense and technology organizations in the world. Not many people (ourselves included) outside of the defense industry know much about the world of defense and military projects. Neil Siegel gives us a rare look at the defense industry, and what motivates the people who work in it.

Andrew: Start off by telling me a little bit about Northrop: how you came to be there, and how you came to learn about how teams work.

Neil: Northrop Grumman is one of the key participants in the U.S. defense and aerospace industry, with many important contributions over the years. The company took its current form over the last 10 years through a series of mergers, bringing together a set of synergistic companies with long and proud legacies of accomplishment. We think of ourselves as a "company of immigrants," respecting those legacies and achievements, while at the same time trying to combine our skills into something synergistic that is better than ever. My current job is sector vice president for Technology and Advanced Systems; I've been doing that for about seven years. Before that, I ran one of the businesses within the company, called Tactical Systems. Tactical Systems created vital, life-saving capabilities for the U.S. military—what the military calls "battle command" and "command-and-control" ...