Solutions Engineer

Software Engineering Institute | Carnegie Mellon University • Pittsburgh, PA

48d • Onsite

About The Position

The Solutions Engineer works on interdisciplinary teams to develop engineering guidance and apply or tailor SEI and non-SEI technologies and resources, assessing gaps between available tools and resources. The position is within the CERT Division of Carnegie Mellon University's Software Engineering Institute (SEI), which researches software engineering, cybersecurity, and AI problems and transitions mature solutions into practice for the Department of War and federal government.

The role supports the CERT Situational Awareness team, which helps government and critical infrastructure organizations understand cyber hybrid environments, identify risks, and make informed cybersecurity, cyber resiliency, and cyber survivability decisions. The team applies cybersecurity, systems engineering, and operational analysis to complex architectures and the relationships among systems, missions, workflows, data, and stakeholders.

The Solutions Engineer provides strategic technical support to senior decision makers; leads or contributes to security architecture and system-of-systems work; develops and evaluates analytical techniques and technologies; and helps organizations plan and implement Zero Trust and cyber resilience strategies. The engineer assesses capabilities, architectures, processes, and risks; develops roadmaps aligned with mission and business objectives; and evaluates, pilots, and transitions technologies into operational environments. The position may lead, mentor, and motivate less-senior staff, leads small to intermediate projects, and contributes to diverse teams delivering projects.

The role is based in Arlington, Virginia, or Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, with moderate travel (20%) to SEI and CMU locations, sponsor sites, conferences, and offsite meetings. 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 various locations in support of the SEI mission; moderate travel of approximately 20%.
• Subject to a background check and must 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 challenging security problems.
• Strong understanding of networking, security, systems administration, programming, and/or cloud.
• Strong research and writing skills.
• Ability to work at the system-of-systems architecture level and identify tradeoffs among approaches.
• Experience working with 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, or workflow/process analysis, or an equivalent combination of training and experience.
• Experience in enterprise, system-of-systems, system, or security architecture.
• Experience in security operations deploying or supporting large-scale network security monitoring infrastructures.
• Experience in security research.
• Experience in programming or software engineering.
• Experience in networking.
• Experience in testing.
• Prior responsibility 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 teams developing, evaluating, and improving security architectures.
• Develop and analyze system-of-systems architectures, requirements, engineering, analysis, technology evaluations, 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 opportunities for improvement.
• Develop domain expertise respected by 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.
• 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 for operational use in situational awareness.

What This Job Offers

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