Cybersecurity Engineer

Description

Do you want to contribute your technical expertise to U.S. strategic deterrence, protecting our Nation from highly capable and motivated nation-state adversaries?

Would you enjoy shaping and conducting a varied portfolio of activities, such as cybersecurity assessments, resilience engineering, threat intelligence, and program protection, to protect, U.S. Navy and Air Force deterrence programs and systems?

Are you passionate about developing innovative approaches to address the most critical of challenges in defending the U.S. and its allies?

If so, we are looking for someone like you to join the System Realization and Resilience Group (K ) within the Force Projection Sector at Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) located in Laurel MD. Our team is responsible for enabling the realization of strategic systems, ensuring resilience and specialty disciplines are integrated throughout system development, and supporting credible verification of strategic weapon systems.

We lead efforts in systems engineering, system security engineering, cyber security, test and integration, digital engineering, nuclear command and control, and reliability engineering.

We are seeking an experienced Cybersecurity Engineer to join our mission-focused multidisciplinary team of engineers and scientists to conduct hands‑on vulnerability assessments, working with the Government and its contractors to identify and prioritize mitigations to address assessment findings based on a deep understanding of mission objectives and operational constraints. Our team works to introduce more cybersecurity aspects to the left side of the System Engineering V - integrating security and resiliency considerations into system architecture and development from the outset.

We strive to foster an environment of creativity and boldness, empowering our staff to design, develop, and pursue solutions in their own unique ways.

• Develop a deep, layered understanding of mission objectives, system architecture, system component functionality, and operational environments through document synthesis and SME engagement.
• Assess deployed systems of interest by:
  • Supporting hands‑on cybersecurity assessments through vulnerability research, direct testing, configuration analysis, and penetration testing of hardware, software, and networks.
  • Participating in the development and execution of test plans, data collection, and analysis of assessment results.
  • Documenting technical findings clearly and consistently to communicate them to external organizations and stakeholders.
  • Working within multidisciplinary and cross-organizational teams to interpret technical vulnerabilities, system findings, and prioritize mitigations or compensating engineering activities in light of mission priorities and operational constraints.
• Support early lifecycle design and development efforts by:
  • Working closely with the external organizations responsible for developing the systems of interest to understand the item being developed, its mission context, and ensure early consideration of security and resilience perspectives.
  • Practicing technical diplomacy to facilitate the communication of ideas across technical, operational, and organizational domains.

• Possess a Bachelors in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, Cybersecurity, Information Assurance, or a related quantitative field.
• Have 5+ years of hands‑on experience with two or more of the following: penetration testing, red teaming, software reverse engineering, malware analysis, exploit development, system security engineering, secure system design, software development.
• Are able to pursue complex technical threads deeply, yet step back to keep focus on the wider mission context and constraints.
• Are experienced in adapting to new systems, stakeholders, and missions, using structured inquiry and creative reasoning to proactively define next steps.
• Have experience writing technical documents and presenting technical information to non‑technical audiences.
• Can obtain an Interim Secret security…