Government and Infrastructure - Service Delivery Center - Cybersecurity Penetration Tester

EY•San Antonio, TX

3d•$77,500 - $160,500•Hybrid

About The Position

EY's Government and Infrastructure practice provides consulting and audit services to Federal, State, Local, and Education clients. The Service Delivery Center is made up of US-based professionals who work with experienced colleagues to deliver project-based work and managed services for federal clients. Its cybersecurity teams assess, improve, build, and sometimes operate integrated security operations for clients. As a member of the Penetration Testing team, you will identify threats and vulnerabilities in operational environments through penetration testing and simulated physical breaches. The role includes advanced penetration testing and red team activities across infrastructure, applications, cloud, and identity environments, with work intended to demonstrate realistic business and mission risks. You will help shape testing engagements, communicate significant findings, ensure the quality of evidence and reports, and provide technical leadership and mentoring to other testers. The position requires working in the local office three days per week. Work may also take place at client, EY, or contractor sites, and travel of 20–30% or more may be required depending on client and project needs. EY provides career-long training and coaching and offers a compensation and benefits package. Base salary ranges vary by office location.

Requirements

Bachelor's degree.
At least 3 years of direct penetration testing or red teaming experience supporting enterprise or large-scale environments.
Hands-on penetration testing experience across infrastructure, application, cloud, and identity-centric environments.
Ability to obtain and maintain a Secret-level security clearance.
At least one intermediate or advanced offensive security certification, such as OSCP, GPEN, or an equivalent industry-recognized certification.
Approximately 1,000 hours of penetration testing activities, aligned with EY Attack and Penetration Testing senior capability benchmarks.
Knowledge of network, operating system, and application exploitation techniques.
Experience with credential-based attack techniques, including password cracking, pass-the-hash, and token abuse.
Experience assessing Active Directory and enterprise identity infrastructure.
Experience testing web applications and application programming interfaces (APIs).
Experience with cloud and hybrid-environment penetration testing.
Ability to use commercial, open-source, and custom penetration testing tools.
Ability to work independently and lead technical testers on penetration testing and red team engagements.
Ability to provide technical leadership and advise junior team members.
Ability to analyze penetration testing results and produce reports covering findings, exploitation procedures, risks, and recommendations.
Ability to communicate complex technical security concepts to technical and non-technical audiences, including executives.
Willingness to work in the local office three days per week.
Willingness to travel 20–30% or more, as required by client and project needs.

Nice To Haves

Experience with internet, intranet, web application, wireless, and social engineering penetration tests, as well as red team assessments.
Ability to work effectively in multi-role delivery teams including Managers, Seniors, and Staff testers aligned to EY Government and Infrastructure resource structures.
Professionalism and discretion when handling sensitive government systems, data, and assessment findings.
Strong client-facing communication skills for interacting with security leadership, compliance personnel, and oversight stakeholders.

Responsibilities

Execute advanced penetration testing and red team activities, identifying, validating, and exploiting complex attack paths to demonstrate realistic business and mission risk.
Perform manual validation of vulnerabilities identified through automated or tool-based scanning to confirm exploitability and impact.
Correlate findings across network, application, cloud, and identity attack vectors to identify systemic security weaknesses.
Escalate critical and high-risk findings to engagement leadership and client stakeholders during active testing.
Explain technical risk, potential impact, and exploitation context to technical and executive audiences.
Review, validate, and approve testing evidence and technical findings before they are included in formal deliverables.
Author or contribute to technical penetration testing reports and executive summaries describing risk, likelihood, and potential impact.
Maintain evidence handling and documentation practices aligned with engagement and compliance requirements.
Support engagement scoping, testing strategy development, and definition of rules of engagement.
Provide technical oversight and mentorship to staff-level penetration testers during testing and report development.
Serve as a senior technical authority during client briefings, readouts, and debrief sessions.
Perform internet, intranet, wireless, web application, social engineering, and physical penetration testing.
Execute red team scenarios to identify gaps affecting organizations' security postures.
Identify and exploit vulnerabilities across a wide range of systems and situations.
Use established methodologies, tools, and rules of engagement to conduct penetration testing projects.