Principal Cyber Protection/Sr. Principal Engineer (AHT)

Northrop Grumman•Warner Robins, GA

1d•$98,400 - $193,900•Onsite

About The Position

Northrop Grumman Defense Systems (NGDS) is seeking a Cyber Protection Principal Engineer to maintain and enhance capabilities in support of DAF CLOUDworks at the Air Force Research Lab (AFRL) in Rome, NY, Warner Robins, GA, or Wright Patterson Air Force Base, OH. DAF CLOUDworks is a rapidly growing secure cloud program that encompasses 10+ teams. These teams span all different areas of cloud engineering including information security, infrastructure development, and cloud migration. You will be an active part of one of these teams providing technical support of customers leveraging DAF CLOUDworks. Along with operations and sustainment, DAF CLOUDworks focuses on modifying and enhancing offerings to implement new requirements, enhance functionality, increase efficiency, or lower operating/deployment. This role is focused on cloud penetration testing, adversarial emulation, red team operations, and container security assessments within a cleared DoD environment. The ideal candidate has a strong offensive security background and deep expertise in AWS and Azure environments. This position is contingent on customer funding and approval and may be filled at a level 3 or level 4.

Requirements

Active Top Secret/SCI clearance.
Ability to obtain an IAT Level II or III certification (Security+, Pentest+, SecurityX,) within 60 days of start.
Deep knowledge of cloud attack paths — IAM privilege escalation, metadata service abuse, misconfigured storage, cross-account trust exploitation, and OAuth/token abuse.
Proficiency with cloud-native offensive tooling including Pacu (AWS exploitation framework) and AADInternals (Azure/M365 offensive toolkit), alongside enumeration platforms such as ScoutSuite, CloudFox, Prowler, and ROADtools.
Bachelor’s degree in Science with 5+ years of software development experience (Level 3) OR Master's with 3+ years of relative experience (Level 3) OR an additional 4 years of experience may be considered in lieu of degree (Level 3).
Bachelor’s degree in Science with 8+ years of software development experience (Level 4) OR Master's with 6+ years of relative experience (Level 4) OR an additional 4 years of experience may be considered in lieu of degree (Level 4).

Nice To Haves

Prior DoD or IC classified environment experience.
Familiarity with adversary simulation platforms such as Cobalt Strike, Sliver, or Havoc.
Hands-on practitioner who has operated tools at depth across real engagements, documented findings under active assessment constraints, and can communicate risk clearly to both technical teams and senior leadership.
Experience developing and executing cyber tabletop exercises including threat scenario design, threat actor emulation planning, and after-action reporting.
Hands-on experience with Docker and Kubernetes security assessments, including container escape techniques, privileged container abuse, K8s RBAC misconfigurations, service account taken abuse, and CI/CD pipeline security across GitLab, GitHub Actions, and Jenkins environments.
Strong scripting skills in Bash, Python, and PowerShell.
Working knowledge of MITRE ATT&CK as applied to cloud and hybrid environments.
Preferred certifications include OSCP, CPTS, PNPT, GPEN, GXPN, GCPN, AWS Security Specialty, or AZ-500.

Responsibilities

Maintain and enhance capabilities in support of DAF CLOUDworks.
Provide technical support to customers leveraging DAF CLOUDworks.
Modify and enhance offerings to implement new requirements, enhance functionality, increase efficiency, or lower operating/deployment.
Perform cloud penetration testing.
Conduct adversarial emulation.
Execute red team operations.
Perform container security assessments within a cleared DoD environment.