Principal Cybersecurity Engineer; Starshield

Principal Cybersecurity Engineer (Starshield)

Washington, DC

SpaceX was founded under the belief that a future where humanity is out exploring the stars is fundamentally more exciting than one where we are not. Today SpaceX is actively developing the technologies to make this possible, with the ultimate goal of enabling human life on Mars.

At SpaceX we’re leveraging our experience in building rockets and spacecraft to deploy the Starshield constellation. Starshield is the world’s largest US government satellite constellation and is tasked with providing immediate access to critical intelligence and national security data for the US government anywhere on the globe. We design, build, test, and operate all parts of the system – n-space sensors, on-the-ground receivers, data processing, and the mesh network that provides lightning-fast connectivity to users around the world.

We’ve only begun to scratch the surface of Starshield's global impact and are looking for best-in-class engineers to help us further our ambitious goals.

We are looking for a principal engineer to grow and lead a team of engineers who are developing and continually testing the cyber defenses of the Starshield network. This job will be hands‑on and require breadth of experience in both software and security. A great candidate for this role appreciates a challenge, thrives on curiosity, and wants to make a difference in the world.

• Lead a team of cybersecurity engineers. This team's priority is to be prepared for immediate response to any active threat against our systems.
• Implement Starshield's cyber defense strategy. Continually assess the landscape of cyber threats and develop specific countermeasures for the Starshield systems. Continually run "red-team" style exercises to both discover vulnerabilities as well as to practice the tactics the team will deploy in the event of attacks.
• Lead vulnerability discovery efforts across Starshield. Run internal bug hunts to search for undiscovered vulnerabilities. Develop a team culture of continual curiosity and open-ended exploration. Utilize the latest tools, including AI, to accelerate both discovery and fixing of bugs in the system.
• Drive improvements into our incident discovery and response. This team will collaborate closely with the team building the internal systems we use to detect security events, and help drive improvement in our ability to discover active attempts at network intrusions.
• Work across teams to get results. This team will collaborate closely with the engineers implementing security features into our systems, as well as the team developing our internal incident discovery tools.

• Bachelor’s degree in computer science, computer engineering, computer security, or a similar field, and 7+ years of professional experience in cybersecurity for active production systems; OR 10+ years of experience in cybersecurity for active production systems.
• Experience leading a team of direct reports.
• Experience in implementing systems for adversary detection and incident response.

• Expertise in computer networks and large-scale distributed compute platforms.
• Experience leading a team of 3-5 engineers on a technical project in cybersecurity.
• Expertise in vulnerability discovery and triage.
• Experience with performing Blue Team or Red Team assessments.
• Ability to communicate technical concepts clearly to nontechnical audiences.
• Ability to deal with ambiguity and to learn new technologies quickly.
• Advanced degree in a technical or engineering discipline.
• Active Top Secret, Top Secret SCI, or DOE Level Q clearance.

• Must be willing to work extended hours and…