Solutions Engineer

Carnegie Mellon University • Pittsburgh, PA

1d • Onsite

About The Position

The Solutions Engineer works 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 and maintain awareness of 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 or contributes to the development, evaluation, and improvement of security architectures. Work includes developing and analyzing systems-of-systems architectures and requirements; evaluating technologies and analytical approaches; documenting current-state architectures and gaps; recommending security solutions; and developing mission threads, workflows, and technology roadmaps. The engineer also supports Zero Trust and cyber-resilience strategies, evaluates and transitions technologies into operational environments, and assesses organizational capabilities, architectures, and processes.

The position involves collaborating with colleagues, customers, and other stakeholders, and may include leading, mentoring, and motivating less-senior staff. The engineer leads small to intermediate projects and may occasionally act in a managerial capacity. The position is based in Arlington, Virginia, or Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, with moderate travel (20%) to support the SEI mission. The employee must undergo a background check and be eligible to obtain and maintain a Department of War security clearance.

Requirements

• Bachelor's degree with eight years of experience, master's degree with five years of experience, or an equivalent combination of training and experience.
• Willingness to travel to SEI and CMU community locations, sponsor sites, conferences, and offsite meetings; moderate travel is 20%.
• Must undergo a background check and be eligible to obtain and maintain a Department of War security clearance.
• 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/or cloud.
• Strong research and writing skills.
• Ability to work at the systems-of-systems architecture level and identify and understand tradeoffs among approaches.
• Experience working with the government or within a critical infrastructure sector.

Nice To Haves

• PhD in Computer Science and Engineering, Systems Engineering, or a related discipline, with two years of experience in cybersecurity/network operations, model-based systems engineering (MBSE), or workflow/process analysis, or an equivalent combination of training and experience.
• Experience in one or more of the following: enterprise, system-of-systems, system, or security architecture; security operations deploying or supporting large-scale network security monitoring infrastructures; security research; programming or software engineering; networking; or testing.
• Prior responsibility for leading a body of work consisting of numerous large-scale projects and multiple customers or external sponsors.
• 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 or contribute to the development, evaluation, and improvement of security architectures.
• Develop and analyze systems-of-systems architectures, requirements, engineering approaches, analyses, technology evaluations, and deployment guidance.
• Develop and evaluate advanced analytical techniques for cyber operations, including AI, machine learning, behavioral analytics, and data-driven approaches.
• 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.
• Build recognition as a domain expert among customers, commercial vendors, and the Internet community.
• Contribute to diverse teams of colleagues, customers, and others to deliver projects.
• Occasionally lead, mentor, and motivate less-senior staff in a managerial capacity.
• Lead small to intermediate projects.
• Lead support to government program offices in strategy, processes and policies, requirements elicitation, design and architecture, operations, outreach, and training (75% of effort).
• Enable the transition and appropriate focus of situational-awareness analysis and engineering approaches and tools into operational environments (15% of effort).
• Design, prototype, and transition tactical analysis studies and tools appropriate for operational use in situational awareness (10% of effort).

Benefits

• Employee benefits are referenced, with details available through Carnegie Mellon University's employee benefits listing; specific benefits are not enumerated in the posting.

What This Job Offers

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