Senior Engagement Lead, Cryptographic Modernization (2026-0211)

Acclaim Technical Services•Reston, VA

13d•$150,000 - $180,000•Onsite

About The Position

Acclaim Technical Services (ATS) is seeking a Senior Engagement Lead, Cryptographic Modernization with an active TS/SCI clearance to lead a complex Federal cybersecurity engagement supporting a national-security customer in Northern Virginia. The Engagement Lead is the senior ATS leader accountable for customer engagement, integrated delivery, contract performance, and identification of follow-on opportunities. This individual serves as the primary interface to customer leadership and ensures that technical workstreams, including cryptographic discovery, cryptographic inventory and CBOM development, risk assessment, and post-quantum cryptography migration planning, remain aligned to mission priorities, contract requirements, security obligations, schedule, and measurable outcomes. The role requires a leader who combines strong Federal cybersecurity and program-delivery experience with sufficient depth in cryptographic modernization and PQC to credibly lead customer discussions, challenge technical approaches, and translate engineering findings into mission, schedule, resource, funding, and migration implications. The Engagement Lead will work closely with the Senior PQC/Cryptography Architect and other technical SMEs, who provide the deepest technical expertise, while the Engagement Lead maintains accountability for the overall customer outcome.

Requirements

Active TS/SCI clearance.
10+ years of Federal cybersecurity, technology, engineering, or mission-delivery experience.
5+ years leading complex technical engagements, programs, or major workstreams.
Demonstrated experience supporting Federal national-security, Intelligence Community, or Department of Defense customers.
Proven success as a senior customer-facing leader on high-visibility technical engagements.
Strong program-management skills spanning scope, schedule, staffing, risk, quality, dependencies, and stakeholder management.
Working knowledge of post-quantum cryptography migration, cryptographic discovery and inventory, CBOM concepts, crypto-agility, NIST cybersecurity/cryptography frameworks, and Federal cyber governance.
Ability to translate complex technical findings into mission impact, migration priorities, schedule, resource needs, funding implications, and executive decisions.
Experience coordinating multidisciplinary technical teams and SMEs.
Strong executive communication, briefing, facilitation, and technical-writing skills.
Demonstrated ability to build trusted relationships with senior Government stakeholders.
Ability to work on-site in [location] at the required customer cadence.

Nice To Haves

PMP, CISSP, CGRC, or similar certification.
Experience leading cryptographic modernization, PQC readiness, PKI modernization, or crypto-agility initiatives.
Experience supporting enterprise cybersecurity modernization, Zero Trust, or other large-scale Federal transformation programs.
Familiarity with cryptographic inventory, CBOM, migration roadmaps, and risk-prioritization methodologies.
Experience managing subcontractors and integrated contractor teams.
Experience supporting recompetes, on-contract growth, capture, or technical proposal development.
Experience presenting cybersecurity modernization strategies to CIO, CISO, engineering, mission, or other executive stakeholders.

Responsibilities

Serve as the primary senior ATS point of contact for customer executives, mission owners, security leaders, engineering stakeholders, and program leadership.
Build and sustain trusted relationships across the customer organization.
Understand customer mission priorities, constraints, decision authorities, and modernization objectives.
Lead executive briefings, technical reviews, decision forums, working groups, and program reviews.
Translate complex cryptographic and cybersecurity findings into actionable executive decisions, mission risk, resource requirements, sequencing, and investment priorities.
Ensure customer decisions, dependencies, and actions are captured and driven to closure.
Own overall execution of contract scope, deliverables, milestones, quality, risk, staffing, and customer commitments.
Coordinate technical workstreams spanning cryptographic discovery, inventory and CBOM development, architecture assessment, risk prioritization, crypto-agility, and PQC migration planning.
Partner with the Senior PQC/Cryptography Architect to ensure technical approaches are defensible, executable, and aligned with applicable NIST and Federal cybersecurity requirements.
Maintain an integrated view of schedule, dependencies, risks, decisions, staffing, customer actions, and deliverable status.
Establish delivery governance, performance measures, escalation mechanisms, and quality controls.
Ensure technical and analytic products clearly communicate findings, evidence, mission impact, migration priorities, and recommended actions.
Drive issues and blockers to resolution before they affect mission outcomes or customer confidence.
Lead and coordinate a multidisciplinary team of cryptography SMEs, cybersecurity engineers, architects, analysts, and other technical personnel.
Establish expectations for technical quality, responsiveness, collaboration, accountability, and customer service.
Work with technical leads to balance workload, priorities, and resource requirements.
Coach task leads and develop future customer-facing and technical leaders.
Partner with ATS leadership and Recruiting to identify and secure cleared personnel with the appropriate technical skill mix.
Monitor contract performance, labor utilization, burn, margin, subcontractor performance, staffing, and forecast-to-complete.
Identify schedule, staffing, technical, financial, and contractual risks early and implement appropriate corrective action.
Ensure timely and accurate contract reporting and support internal program and executive reviews.
Coordinate with Contracts, Finance, Security, and other corporate functions to ensure engagement compliance and sound execution.
Identify adjacent customer needs, follow-on requirements, and modernization opportunities that emerge through delivery.
Partner with Growth and Capture teams on on-contract growth, option periods, recompetes, and targeted new work.
Provide customer insight, technical context, competitive intelligence, and mission understanding to account and capture strategies.
Support white papers, technical solutioning, demonstrations, proposals, and executive engagement where appropriate.
Help position ATS as a long-term partner in cryptographic modernization, post-quantum readiness, and broader cybersecurity transformation.