Senior Solutions Engineer

Software Engineering Institute | Carnegie Mellon University • Pittsburgh, PA

36d

About The Position

The Senior Solutions Engineer will work within the CERT Division of Carnegie Mellon University’s Software Engineering Institute (SEI), supporting the CERT Situational Awareness team. The team helps organizations—particularly the Department of War, federal government, and critical infrastructure sectors—understand cyber hybrid environments, identify risks, and make informed cybersecurity, cyber resiliency, and cyber survivability decisions.

The role provides strategic technical support to senior decision makers and leads teams developing security and system-of-systems architectures. Work includes mission engineering; requirements development; architecture and systems analysis; technology evaluation and deployment guidance; and applying AI, machine learning, behavioral analytics, and data-driven methods to cyber operations. The engineer documents current-state architectures, identifies capability and coverage gaps, assesses technology integration strategies, recommends security solutions, and develops mission threads and workflows.

The position supports organizations planning, assessing, and implementing Zero Trust and cyber resilience strategies; evaluates, pilots, and transitions technologies into operational environments; and develops cybersecurity, technology, and architecture roadmaps aligned with mission and business objectives. It also assesses organizational capabilities, architectures, processes, and cyber resilience to identify risks and opportunities for improvement.

The Senior Solutions Engineer may lead, mentor, and motivate less-senior staff; oversee multiple projects; and work independently with general direction and limited guidance in settings where requirements may be poorly defined. The work is based in Arlington, Virginia, or Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and involves moderate travel (20%) to sponsor sites, conferences, offsite meetings, and locations within the SEI and CMU community.

Requirements

• Bachelor’s degree with 10 years of experience, master’s degree with 8 years of experience, or an equivalent combination of training and experience.
• Willingness to travel to various locations to support the SEI’s mission; moderate travel of 20%.
• Must be eligible to obtain and maintain a Department of War security clearance and will be subject to a background check.
• Ability to present technical topics to audiences ranging from senior leadership to technical experts.
• Ability to work with multiple stakeholders to promote practical solutions to difficult security problems.
• Strong understanding of networking, security, systems administration, programming, and cloud.
• Ability to work at the systems-of-systems architecture level to identify and understand tradeoffs.
• Experience working with the government or within a critical infrastructure sector.
• Strong research and writing skills.

Nice To Haves

• PhD in Computer Science and Engineering, Systems Engineering, or a related discipline, with 2 years of experience in cybersecurity/network operations, Model-Based Systems Engineering, or workflow/process analysis; or an equivalent combination of training and experience.
• Experience in security or enterprise architecture.
• Experience deploying or supporting large-scale network security monitoring infrastructures in security operations.
• Experience in security research.
• Experience in programming or software engineering.
• Experience in networking.
• Experience in testing.
• Prior responsibility leading a body of work involving numerous large-scale projects and multiple customers or external sponsors.
• A history of contributions to the broader industry or research community and experience in a variety of network security areas.

Responsibilities

• Provide strategic technical support to senior decision makers.
• Lead teams in developing security architectures.
• Perform mission engineering, systems-of-systems architecture work, requirements development, engineering, analysis, technology evaluation, and deployment guidance.
• Develop and evaluate advanced analytical techniques, including AI, machine learning, behavioral analytics, and data-driven approaches for cyber operations.
• Document current-state architectures; identify capability and coverage gaps; evaluate technology integration strategies; recommend security solutions; and develop mission threads and workflows.
• Support organizations in planning, assessing, and implementing Zero Trust and cyber resilience strategies.
• Evaluate, pilot, and transition new technologies into operational environments.
• Develop cybersecurity, technology, and architecture roadmaps aligned with mission and business objectives.
• Assess organizational capabilities, security architectures, operational processes, and cyber resilience to identify strengths, weaknesses, risks, and improvement opportunities.
• Lead, mentor, and motivate less-senior staff when needed.
• Oversee multiple projects and act independently with general direction and limited guidance.
• Lead support to government program offices in strategy, process and policies, requirements elicitation, design and architecture, operations, outreach, and training.
• Enable the transition and appropriate focus of situational awareness analysis and engineering approaches and tools into operational environments.
• Design, prototype, and transition tactical analysis studies and tools suitable for operational use in situational awareness.

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Senior