Cyber Research and Development Engineer

Join to apply for the Cyber Research and Development Engineer role at The Applied Research Laboratory at Penn State University
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Applicants must use the Workday internal application system if they are current Penn State employees or students. Externally, click “Apply” and complete the external applicant process.

• Current Penn State employee (faculty, staff, technical service, or student) — login to Workday to complete the internal application process.
• Current Penn State student (not previously employed) — login to Workday to complete the student application process.
• Non‑employee or non‑student — click “Apply” and complete the external application process.

Approval of remote and hybrid work is not guaranteed regardless of work location. For additional information on remote work at Penn State, see Notice to Out of State Applicants.

We are searching for a self‑motivated Cyber Research and Development (R&D) Engineer to join our Cyberspace Operations Research Department of the Applied Research Laboratory (ARL) at Penn State. The department provides technical expertise in adversarial tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs) to support system evaluation and provide security hardening support to various sponsors. ARL is an authorized DoD Skill Bridge partner and welcomes all transitioning military members to apply.

In this role, you will:

• Research cutting‑edge techniques and technologies for cyberspace operations.
• Leverage expertise in reverse engineering, vulnerability research, and software development to address established needs and investigate solutions to emerging requirements.
• Apply software engineering best practices to create proof‑of‑concept tools and configure test environments to perform demonstrations to sponsors and partners.
• Assist the Cyberspace Operations Research Department Head in maintaining relationships with sponsors through on‑site technical discussions, preparation and presentation of technical materials, and project‑related correspondence.
• Provide process enhancement for technical functionality evaluation, vulnerability analyses, cyberspace operations engineering, and penetration testing projects.
• Apply project management principles and methods to the leadership of tasks or projects.
• Provide guidance to lower‑level engineers to foster professional growth.

Additional responsibilities for a higher‑level position include:

• Understand broad strategic objectives and contribute to them.
• Nurture and maintain relationships with major customers or grantors of external research and development grant funding.
• Identify grant/project follow‑on work and persuade customers or grantors to fund.
• Impact customer decisions and strategies.
• Initiate new project concepts and seek funding.
• Develop technical proposals and make presentations to customers or grant sponsors.
• Mentor department staff in the development of technical, project, and business development skills.

Required skills/experience areas include:

• Documented application of reverse engineering and vulnerability testing tools (e.g., Ghidra/IDA, Kali Linux, Angr/AFL++, QEMU/Unicorn, etc.).
• Reverse engineering, vulnerability research, malware analysis, or CNO tool development.
• Computer networking fundamentals, Windows, and
  * NIX operating systems, X86(64) and ARM or MIPS architectures.
• Cyber operations architecture and software engineering practices.
• Software programming in C, Java, or Python.
• Ability to express technical information clearly and concisely in documents and presentations for senior leaders.
• Active government security clearance at TS/SCI level with eligibility for special accesses.

Preferred skills/experience areas include:

• Experience in cybersecurity exploit development and test environment configuration.
• Cybersecurity threat modeling, threat emulation, and penetration testing.
• Experience with military cyberspace operations or computer network operations.
• Demonstrated history of successful project initiation efforts.
• Application of automation and autonomy (e.g., AI/ML) for cybersecurity testing workflows.
• Use of Agile software development methodology and tools.
• Experience working with Atlassian products (e.g., JIRA, Confluence).
• Master’s degree.

Your work…