Associate Cybersecurity Engineer

The goal of the CERT Cyber Mission Readiness (CMR) directorate is to ensure the United States and its partners are ready to thwart and counter adversarial aggression in cyberspace. To achieve this, we develop large-scale, hands-on exercises with advanced threat simulation; create smaller, on-demand exercises for targeted skills assessment; produce and facilitate tabletop exercises; develop and run cybersecurity competitions; and develop custom, open-source solutions to help customers fulfill their cyber mission. CMR works with government mission partners to identify and resolve gaps that hinder their ability to counter rapidly evolving adversary tactics in cyberspace.

CMR’s core strength is our supportive and highly collaborative culture. Our team recognizes the importance of our mission: to ensure that our nation and mission partners have the tools and capabilities they need to neutralize threats in cyberspace. We are looking for people of character who share our passion, love technology and teamwork, and who have a desire to teach, learn from, and collaborate with others. Your intellectual curiosity and desire to learn new concepts and skills alongside your teammates is what we need most—attitude is everything! We provide numerous internal and external training and professional development opportunities for members of our team and learn from each other through cross-training and mentoring.

Position Summary:

As a member of CMR, you will work with other team members to develop and deliver cybersecurity readiness capabilities, programs, and software for US Government departments, agencies, and associated organizations.  Although not essential, you will have opportunities to perform applied and, in some cases, fundamental research in the fields of cybersecurity, software engineering, and artificial intelligence.

Requirements:

• BS with 3 years of applicable experience or MS with 1 year of applicable experience in Computer Science, Information Science, Engineering, Cybersecurity or related technical discipline
• Willingness to travel to various locations in support of the SEI’s overall mission. This includes within the SEI and CMU community, mission partner sites, conferences, and offsite meetings on occasion. Minimal travel (5-10%)
• You will be subject to a background check and must be eligible to obtain and maintain a Department of Defense security clearance

​

Duties:

• Build and maintain cybersecurity platforms, in cloud service providers, using infrastructure as code and modern DevOps practices
• Develop and deliver hands-on, cybersecurity exercises and labs for government mission partners
• Collaborate and problem-solve with fellow team members
• Collect project requirements and translate them into technical work
• Define, create, and maintain technical solutions to support government cybersecurity programs
• Work regularly with a wide range of software and hardware technologies
• Develop software proofs of concept and prototypes

Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities:

• Virtualization and cloud technologies (e.g., VMware vSphere, Microsoft Azure, Amazon AWS, etc.)
• DevOps and automation technologies (e.g., Git, Docker, Kubernetes, Terraform, etc.)
• Scripting (e.g., Bash, PowerShell, Python, etc.)
• Strong understanding of cybersecurity fundamentals and best practices.

Specific topics may include:

• Host and network hardening
• Incident response
• Digital forensics
• Penetration testing
• Effective technical problem solving
• Strong oral and written communications

Desired Experience:

• Hands-on experience with open-source and commercial security tools (e.g., Kali, Metasploit, Security Onion, Elastic Stack, etc.)
• System administration of server and desktop platforms (e.g., Windows, Linux)
• Network design, configuration, and troubleshooting (e.g., routers, switches, firewalls, proxies, etc.)
• Programming (e.g., Python, C#, C, C++, TypeScript/Angular, Java, etc.)

• Federal government experience involving information technology, cybersecurity, or management of large-scale government networks

Location

Arlington, VA, Pittsburgh, PA

Job Function

Software/Applications Development/Engineering

Position Type

Staff – Regular

Full time/Part time

Full time

Pay Basis

Salary

More Information: 

• Please visit “Why Carnegie Mellon” to learn more about becoming part of an institution inspiring innovations that change the world. 

• Click here to view a listing of employee benefits

• Carnegie Mellon University is an Equal Opportunity Employer/Disability/Veteran. 

• Statement of Assurance