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Senior Principle Optical Engineer & Technology Program Leader

With over two decades of experience turning ambitious technical concepts into fielded systems, Nicholas Croglio is a technologist who thrives at the intersection of optics, lasers, algorithms, and mechatronics. Currently a Senior Principal Optical Engineer at Northrop Grumman, he leads optical design, system engineering, and integration/test efforts for active and passive electro-optical, laser, polarimetric, and micro-optic systems supporting defense applications. What sets Nicholas apart is not just technical depth, but the ability to build and elevate teams. Rather than simply managing checklists, he identifies the critical tasks that actually move a program forward — scoping ambiguous problems, mastering new tools and applications quickly, and creating the conditions where engineers of all experience levels feel empowered to take risks and think differently. Time and again, Nicholas has been brought in to rescue programs that other leaders couldn't crack: using the same team, but with renewed focus and a clearer technical roadmap, turning stalled efforts into delivered products. Across a career spanning Jet Propulsion Laboratory, ESI, Applied Photonics, OEwaves, Ondax, Spectoccular Labs, SpectraSensors, Honeywell, and Northrop Grumman, Nicholas has: Designed and delivered nanometer-precision laser heterodyne interferometers for JPL's Space Interferometry Mission and metrology programs Built high-resolution, wide-FOV holographic and foveated AR/VR displays — including systems with 9x the resolution of contemporary consumer headsets Led global teams through complex laser communications proposals, system architecture, and module design at Honeywell Directed a 6+ year turnaround at SpectraSensors, improving spectroscopy measurement accuracy, cutting laser module power consumption 5x, and mining years of manufacturing data with SAS, Python, and multivariate statistics to drive yield improvements Developed novel optical systems for biological imaging, cutting wavefront error in half for OCT and imaging applications Patented laser micro-machining and ablation techniques that doubled system speed while improving quality Nicholas specializes in program management, system engineering, optical and opto-mechanical design, laser systems, electro-optics, imaging and non-imaging optics, AR/VR and 3D vision, and machine learning-driven algorithm development — using tools including Zemax/OpticStudio, Code V, OSLO, SolidWorks, MATLAB, Python, and JIRA/Confluence/Polarion for program execution. Certifications Project Management Professional (PMP)®, Project Management Institute PMI Agile Certified Practitioner (PMI-ACP), Project Management Institute Certified Scrum Product Owner (CSPO), Scrum Alliance Certified ScrumMaster (CSM), Scrum Alliance Associate System Engineering Professional (ASEP), INCOSE Lean Six Sigma Black Belt, Simplilearn Certified Six Sigma Green Belt, Simplilearn NGC Earned Value Management (EVM) Cost Account Management (CAM) Certification, Northrop Grumman Scrum Fundamentals Certified (SFC), VMEdu.com Introduction to Quantum Computing, Frontier Technology Institute