Senior Cyber SETA Lead​/Technical Advisor

Position: Senior Cyber SETA Lead / Technical Advisor
The Senior Cyber SETA Lead / Technical Advisor serves as an authoritative, trusted technical advisor to Government Program Executive Officers (PEOs), Program Managers (PMs), and government leadership. In this Systems Engineering and Technical Assistance (SETA) role, the incumbent provides independent technical evaluation, acquisition stewardship, and engineering oversight to ensure that major defense acquisition programs, rapid warfighter prototyping initiatives, and joint cyber architectures deliver resilient capabilities against sophisticated, state-sponsored cyber adversaries.

Operating as an objective extension of the government customer, this role bridges defense acquisition lifecycle governance (FAR and OTA), and operational cyber threat mitigation. The Senior Cyber SETA Lead independently evaluates prime contractor engineering deliverables, software assurance pipelines, supply chain risk management (SCRM) postures, and threat emulation findings across multi-domain platforms (including aircraft, tactical networks, mission planning, cloud, and electronic warfare suites).

Leveraging an offensive cyber mindset and extensive program leadership experience, the incumbent ensures that government requirements are validated, defensible architectures are enforced, and taxpayer investments achieve maximum warfighter survivability.

Responsibilities Independent Technical Evaluation & Defensible Architecture Oversight:
Act as the government's primary technical authority evaluating prime contractor system architectures, engineering change proposals (ECPs), and security artifacts.

SETA Program Management & Acquisition Advisory:
Provide objective advisory support across the Planning, Programming, Budgeting, and Execution (PPBE) lifecycle and DoD 5000/adaptive acquisition pathways. Advise government leadership on technical direction, source selections, Statements of Work (SOW), System Requirements Documents (SRDs), Contract Data Requirements Lists (CDRLs), and vendor milestone reviews. Assist in formulating innovative contracting approaches using traditional FAR/DFARS mechanisms and Other Transaction Authority (OTA) rapid acquisition vehicles.

Prime Contractor Surveillance & Software Assurance:
Monitor and evaluate prime vendor execution across the cyber lifecycle—including software assurance, continuous integration/continuous delivery (CI/CD), secure supply chain risk management (SCRM), and test and evaluation (T&E). Provide critical assessments of contractor-submitted vulnerability remediation timelines, zero-day mitigation strategies, and continuous monitoring baselines.

Threat Intelligence & Red Team Synthesis:
Synthesize multi-source intelligence reports, NSA threat disclosures, and red team/adversary emulation results into actionable risk-mitigation roadmaps for program leadership. Translate emerging adversarial vectors into clear engineering requirements and operational risk tradeoffs that inform government milestone and fielding decisions.

Executive Communication & Cross-Functional Alignment:
Prepare and deliver executive-level technical briefings, independent risk assessments, and decision memorandums for General/Flag Officers, PAEs, and congressional or DoD oversight bodies. Facilitate technical synchronization across government stakeholders, operational cyber mission forces, service laboratories (e.g., DARPA), and commercial vendor teams.

Required Qualifications
20+ years of progressive experience in defense acquisition, systems engineering, military cyber operations, or technical advisory roles within the DoD and Intelligence Community.

Demonstrated background acting in an engineering advisory, SETA, or government technical director capacity overseeing major defense programs or…