Senior Embedded Software Security Engineer Security Clearance

Position: Senior Embedded Software Security Engineer with Security Clearance
At MITRE, your passion fuels work that impacts our nation and improves lives. This is where your skills strengthen national security, cybersecurity, health, transportation, and citizen services. We're a nonprofit engineering, applied research, and advanced technology organization working in the public interest. With objectivity and integrity at our core, we lead federally funded research and development centers for U.S. government agencies - collaborating with industry and academia to deliver integrated, high-impact solutions that advance our nation's health, security, and prosperity.

Our people tackle the toughest technical challenges, supported by competitive benefits, meaningful career development, and a culture of innovation, collaboration, and technical excellence. Choose MITRE for a career with purpose - and help shape the future. MITRE's Electronic Systems Security department is seeking highly motivated engineers to develop and secure next-generation embedded systems supporting missions of national importance. Our teams work at the intersection of embedded software, computer architecture, hardware security, and applied research to design, prototype, evaluate, and transition resilient systems capable of operating in sophisticated threat environments.

Qualified candidates will join a technically deep, mission-focused environment where they will contribute directly to government sponsor efforts, prototype advanced capabilities, improve embedded system security requirements for national security programs, and help advance the state of the art in secure embedded computing.

Roles & Responsibilities :
This role focuses on hardware-aware software security for embedded systems. Engineers in this area develop secure embedded software architectures, implement trusted computing technologies such as secure boot using cryptographic roots of trust, and build tooling that improves the security and assurance of embedded platforms. Our work spans secure embedded software development, compiler- and analysis-assisted vulnerability mitigation, implementation security, trusted execution technologies, firmware authentication, and evaluation of systems against hardware-enabled attacks such as side-channel analysis and fault injection.

Engineers collaborate closely with multidisciplinary teams conducting embedded system prototyping, implementation security research, software assurance, and vulnerability assessment. Engineers in this role will develop and apply their technical expertise to:
* Design and develop secure embedded software and firmware for mission-critical systems.

* Architect and implement trusted computing technologies including secure boot, firmware signing, cryptographic roots of trust, trusted execution, and secure key management.

* Develop tooling and infrastructure for secure-by-construction embedded systems, including static analysis, symbolic analysis, compiler-assisted protections, and automated hardening techniques.

* Prototype and evaluate security capabilities across bare-metal, RTOS, embedded Linux, FPGA SoC, and heterogeneous computing platforms.

* Assess embedded systems for hardware-enabled attacks such as side-channel analysis and fault injection and develop software mitigations.

* Collaborate with multidisciplinary teams conducting embedded security research, vulnerability assessment, and hardware/software co-design.

* Deliver prototypes, technical recommendations, and engineering support directly to sponsors.

* Support development of embedded security requirements, acquisition guidance, and implementation security best practices.

* Communicate and document technical approaches, risks, and results to sponsors and stakeholders.

* Provide technical mentorship to junior engineers.

Basic Qualifications:

* Typically requires a minimum of 5 years of related experience with a bachelor's degree; or 3 years and a master's degree; or a PhD with relevant experience who can immediately contribute at this job step; or equivalent combination of related education and work experience. Applicants selected for this position will be subject to a US government security investigation and must be able to obtain a Department of Defense SECRET clearance, which requires US citizenship.

* Experience developing embedded software in C/C++ and tooling in Python.

* Experience with low-level embedded software development (e.g., bare-metal firmware, RTOS, embedded Linux, device drivers, or systems programming).

* Familiarity with embedded system debugging workflows and development tools.

* Understanding of embedded security concepts including secure boot, cryptographic integration, key management, trusted computing, and secure software architecture.

* Understanding of how hardware and computer architecture influence embedded system security.

* Ability to independently execute complex technical work in collaborative environments.

* Effective oral and written communication skills.

* Ability to obtain and maintain a Secret Security Clearance…