About the position
Are you a motivated Cyber Software Engineer with technical hands-on knowledge of mission focused systems? Are you an ethical hacker ready to apply your knowledge to National Security? Join us at the Leidos Innovations Center, Information and Data Science Division, with a group of highly skilled and innovative individuals and a variety of exciting R&D programs. As a Cyber Software Engineer, you will design and implement sophisticated low-level networking and embedded software systems in support of national security missions. You will work in a dynamic, high-impact environment requiring deep knowledge of network stacks, system internals, and offensive/defensive cyber techniques. As a senior member of the team, you will contribute to architectural decisions and mentor junior engineers. This position will support multiple programs and projects as well as being responsible for building/supervising a core group of software engineers as well as defining and maturing the organization's software development processes.
Responsibilities
- Architect and develop software for cyber tools targeting networked and embedded systems in contested environments.
- Design, develop, and maintain custom tools and frameworks to support reverse engineering, vulnerability analysis, and exploitation efforts.
- Conduct static analysis, dynamic analysis, and advanced fuzzing techniques on embedded devices and network protocols to identify attack vectors, enhance resilience, and optimize performance.
- Collaborate with cyber analysts, mission operators, and hardware teams to deploy cyber capabilities, ensure operational security (OPSEC), and support mission execution.
- Produce technical documentation, mentor junior engineers, and contribute to knowledge transfer within cyber operations teams.
- Stay ahead of emerging cyber threats, adversarial tactics, and offensive cybersecurity advancements.
- Lead efforts to develop the Software Development, Integration, and testing processes using state-of-the-art industry best practices.
- Lead, build, mentor, and supervise a group of Software Engineers.
Requirements
- Bachelor's degree in computer science, Computer Engineering, Electrical Engineering, or a closely related technical field.
- Minimum of 8 years of experience, with a significant portion focused on network defense and cyber security for embedded systems; master's with 6 - 10 years of prior relevant experience. May possess a Doctorate in technical domain.
- Expertise in computer architecture, memory management, and common vulnerability classes (CWEs).
- Proven expertise in C and C++ programming and strong proficiency in Rust.
- Hands-on experience with TCP/IP networking stack development and strong understanding of network protocols and concepts from a security perspective.
- Deep understanding of operating system internals.
- Experience developing software interacting directly with hardware components and proficiency with embedded development tool chains.
- Working knowledge with AI/ML.
- Excellent analytical, problem-solving, and critical thinking skills and ability to work independently on complex tasks and lead technical efforts.
- Strong technical writing and communication skills.
- Defining software development processes and mentoring junior software development engineers.
- Strong understanding of sound software development principles and practices and ability to define software development processes.
- Ability to obtain and maintain a DoD Secret clearance. (U.S. Citizenship is required)
Nice-to-haves
- Experience with wireless protocols (Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, Zigbee, SDR) and their security implications.
- Experience with Android Mobile Operating Systems and Mobile Networks.
- Experience developing exploits for various architectures (ARM, MIPS, x86, PPC).
- Experience with reverse engineering tools (IDA Pro, Ghidra, Binary Ninja, etc.).
- Knowledge of cryptographic principles and common implementation weaknesses.
- Experience with hardware-level analysis and attack techniques (e.g., side-channel analysis, fault injection).
- Contributions to the security community (e.g., published research, CVEs, conference presentations).
- Experience with developing secure, resilient solutions.
- Experience with formal methods.
- Experience with developing/integrating/testing embedded applications.
- Experience with Machine Learning and/or Artificial Intelligence algorithms and libraries.
- Active DoD Secret clearance is preferred.
Benefits
- Pay Range $104,650.00 - $189,175.00
