Information System Security Engineer; ISSE

Overview

Cyber Defense Technologies (CDT) is seeking a highly skilled and experienced Information System Security Engineer (ISSE) to join our team in St. Petersburg, FL. This role is ideal for a proactive individual who thrives in technically demanding environments requiring autonomy, precision, and depth beyond basic RMF compliance activities. The selected candidate will operate independently, taking ownership of complex security challenges and driving solutions from identification through resolution.

Responsibilities include implementing and enforcing security standards across a diverse and evolving systems portfolio, bridging high-level engineering principles with hands‑on vulnerability analysis and remediation.

• Critical Thinking: You go beyond identifying vulnerabilities — you analyze root cause and implement corrective actions that preserve system performance and engineering integrity.
• Self‑Directed Executor: You are comfortable transforming high‑level objectives into measurable outcomes without the need for constant oversight or prescriptive guidance.
• Technically Versatile: You possess deep expertise in patch management and compliance enforcement, coupled with the intellectual curiosity to understand and navigate the complexities of the Radio Frequency (RF) spectrum.
• Security Engineering Authority: You serve as a technical lead for system hardening initiatives, ensuring systems are not only compliant but resilient against modern threat actors.

An active Top Secret/SCI clearance is required. All candidates must be U.S. Citizens. Applicants who do not meet these requirements will not be considered.

• Diverse Image Deployment & Orchestration: Manage and secure a highly diverse distribution of system images. You will be responsible for ensuring security integrity across several image builds, ensuring that rapid deployment doesn't compromise system hardening.
• Rapid Tech Integration: Serve as the security lead for “first-of-its-kind” technologies. You will perform security engineering on emerging tech as it enters the pipeline, developing protection profiles for hardware and software that may not yet have an established DISA STIG or roadmap.
• Strategic Risk Mitigation: Apply Information Assurance (IA) concepts and DoW security standards to proactively identify and neutralize security risks before they impact mission readiness.
• Operationalize Compliance: Lead the establishment of continuous monitoring processes to streamline Authorization to Operate (ATO) workflows, ensuring strict alignment with DoD and IC policy guidance.
• System Architecture Hardening: Implement and engineer advanced security monitoring solutions for RMF compliance across diverse systems and regional AOR sensors.
• Control Mapping & Authorization: Independently map NIST 800‑53 controls and DISA Control Correlation Identifiers (CCI) to new system capabilities to ensure seamless ATO renewals.
• Configuration Authority: Coordinate complex system updates and configuration changes directly with customers, maintaining meticulous version history and compliance documentation.
• Security Engineering & Hardening: Execute and engineer security safeguards across enterprise, embedded, and air‑gapped systems on a wide variety of hardware platforms.
• Vulnerability Lifecycle Management: Own the full remediation process for identified vulnerabilities, moving beyond mere identification to technical resolution.
• Cross‑Platform Patch Management: Independently manage and execute full patching cycles for Windows, Linux, Android, and iOS environments.
• Dynamic Security Testing: Design and execute original security test cases and conduct comprehensive security testing to validate system resilience.
• Mission‑Focused Solution Engineering: Rapidly engineer technical solutions that adapt to evolving customer requirements and real‑world mission demands.

• RMF & Regulatory Architecture: Advanced mastery of the NIST 800‑53 Risk Management Framework (RMF) process. Ability to architect compliance strategies that ensure authorization for complex, multi‑domain systems.
• Systems Hardening & Compliance…