Senior Vulnerability Researcher

KBR • Beavercreek, OH

22h • $142,000 - $213,000

About The Position

KBR is seeking a Senior Vulnerability Researcher to lead vulnerability discovery and validation against embedded systems and firmware. This role owns end‑to-end vulnerability research: building emulation-backed test environments, designing fuzzing and analysis workflows, performing crash triage and root-cause analysis, and developing proof‑of-concept exploits to validate impact in a controlled lab setting.
The Senior Vulnerability Researcher provides technical leadership, mentors engineers into defined proficiencies, and works directly with government customers to deliver reproducible findings and scalable research capability.

Requirements

• Security Clearance: Must have an active U.S. government Secret security clearance, which is something only a U.S. citizen can obtain
• Education: Master’s degree in Computer Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Computer Science, or a related field
• 10+ years of experience, including at least 5 years in vulnerability research, reverse engineering, or exploit development
• Strong understanding of embedded systems, firmware, operating systems, and low-level software behavior
• Proficiency in C/C++, Python, and assembly for vulnerability research, harness development, and automation
• Experience building emulation-backed analysis environments
• Demonstrated experience with coverage-guided fuzzing, harness development, and crash triage workflows
• Demonstrated ability to produce proof‑of-concept exploits for vulnerability validation
• Demonstrated leadership, mentorship, and customer engagement experience

Nice To Haves

• Experience with hybrid fuzzing and advanced analysis techniques
• Experience scaling fuzzing or dynamic testing programs
• Experience with hardware security research
• Publications, reports, or presentations in vulnerability research or embedded security

Responsibilities

• Lead and mentor vulnerability researchers; set technical direction and intentionally develop individual proficiencies
• Execute vulnerability research on embedded targets using asset‑safe approaches
• Build and maintain fuzzing pipelines, including target selection, harness development, seed/corpus management, and coverage-driven campaign design
• Perform crash triage, exploitability assessment, and root-cause analysis
• Develop proof‑of-concept exploits to demonstrate vulnerability impact in controlled labs
• Create controlled test harnesses and orchestration to exercise payload delivery and validate behavior deterministically across runs
• Reverse engineer firmware/binaries as needed to understand vulnerable code paths, exploitation constraints, and exploit mechanics
• Engage customers to understand mission outcomes and shape scalable research approaches
• Produce high-quality technical reports and supporting artifacts suitable for release

What This Job Offers

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