Government and Infrastructure - Cybersecurity - Penetration Tester - Senior Consultant

EY•McLean, VA

1d•$104,800 - $218,500•Onsite

About The Position

EY’s Government and Public Sector practice provides consulting and audit services to federal, state, local, and education clients. The Cybersecurity team assesses, improves, builds, and sometimes operates integrated security operations for clients. As a Senior Consultant on the Penetration Testing team, you will identify threats and vulnerabilities in operational environments through penetration testing and simulated physical breaches, and help clients understand their security risks. The role includes advanced penetration testing and red team activities across infrastructure, applications, cloud, identity, wireless, and physical environments. You will validate vulnerabilities, investigate attack paths, communicate significant findings, and contribute to high-quality technical reports and executive summaries. You will also support engagement scoping and testing strategy, mentor staff-level testers, and provide technical leadership during client briefings and debriefs. Work may take place at client, EY, or contractor sites. The role is associated with the Washington, DC area, requires comfort working in person as needed, and may involve travel of 20–30% or more depending on client and project needs.

Requirements

Bachelor’s degree.
At least 3 years of direct penetration testing or red teaming experience supporting enterprise or large-scale environments.
Ability to obtain and maintain a Secret-level clearance.
Comfort working in person as needed in the Washington, DC area.
Hands-on penetration testing experience across infrastructure, application, cloud, and identity-centric environments.
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 application and API security.
Experience with cloud and hybrid environment penetration testing.
Experience using 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 convey complex technical security concepts to technical and non-technical audiences, including executives.
Willingness to travel 20–30% or more as client and project needs require.

Nice To Haves

Experience in internet, intranet, web application, wireless, social engineering, and red team assessments.
Ability to operate effectively within multi-role delivery teams comprising Managers, Seniors, and Staff testers in EY GPS resource structures.
Professionalism and discretion when handling sensitive government systems, data, and assessment findings.
Strong client-facing communication skills for interactions 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 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 clearly to technical and executive audiences.
Review, validate, and approve testing evidence and technical findings before inclusion in formal deliverables.
Author and contribute to technical penetration testing reports and executive summaries describing risk, likelihood, and potential impact.
Maintain evidence handling and documentation practices consistent with engagement and compliance requirements.
Support engagement scoping, testing strategy development, and definition of rules of engagement.
Provide technical oversight and mentoring 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 security posture gaps.
Lead technical testers and advise junior team members on penetration testing and red team engagements.
Analyze testing results and prepare reports describing findings, exploitation procedures, risks, and recommendations.
Execute projects using established methodologies, tools, and rules of engagement.