Cyber Engineer Principal

SAIC; Reston (VA); À distance; USD 120 000 - 160 000; Plein temps

Résumé du poste

SAIC is seeking a highly hands-on Principal Cyber Engineer who leads cyber initiatives and mentors peers. You will operate across Zero Trust, AI platform security, and data engineering for security telemetry, while hands-on configuring SIEM/SOC architecture and cloud security tools.

The role requires frequent travel to Virginia/DC customer spaces and a Top Secret clearance with SCI eligibility. You will craft authoritative white papers, job aids, and proposals while guiding a cyber team in

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree required with 9+ years in cyber engineering.
• U.S. citizen with active Top Secret clearance and SCI eligibility.
• Must live within commuting range of Reston, VA; some travel to VA/DC spaces.
• Current CompTIA Security+ CE or equivalent (8140) intermediate certification.
• 8+ years of hands-on cyber engineering; SOC/SIEM architecture experience.
• Experience assessing cyber programs against frameworks and recommending solutions.
• Technical depth in Zero Trust and AI platforms; data engineering for security telemetry; SIEM automation.
• Familiarity with RMF, CMMC, ICD-705; incident response; cloud security and DLP/IPS.
• Ability to explain time-indexed vs stateful data and how tooling supports Zero Trust targets.
• Strong CLI skills on Windows and Linux; AWS CLI; proper documentation and training.
• Excellent communication; able to teach and present to mixed audiences.
• Desirable: Splunk admin cert; CISSP/ISSAP/ISSEP/ISSMP; additional cloud/security credentials.
• Experience with SOAR, EDR/XDR, identity platforms and securing AI/ML platforms.

Responsabilités

• Enter customer environments quickly; learn stack and people within days; leave usable artifacts.
• Drive the cyber team when space is new or stuck; advise contract cyber leads.
• Assess programs against frameworks; recommend modernization, automation, and next steps.
• Work on Zero Trust, AI platform security, data telemetry and SIEM/SOC architecture.
• Apply RMF, CMMC, ICD-705 in live spaces; support incident response; tune security and cloud architecture.
• Manage end-to-end security tooling, including DLP, IPS, and load balancers; optimize traffic paths.
• Troubleshoot with CLI first; use Windows/Linux CLI; escalate with evidence.
• Teach and write job aids; contribute technically to proposals.

Connaissances

Zero Trust

AI platforms

SIEM architecture

SOC tooling

PowerShell

AWS CLI

Windows

Linux

Formation

Bachelor’s degree

Master’s degree

Outils

Splunk

AWS Console

Bash

Description du poste

Description

SAIC has an opening for a highly hands-on, Principal Cyber Engineer who lives and breathes this work—the SME for SMEs. The ideal candidate is someone who experiments at home, maintains a personal mixed OS lab, and genuinely enjoys tinkering with new and opensource security tools, building and breaking environments to learn how things work. This role is well-suited to someone who genuinely enjoys exploring new security capabilities, testing ideas, coding up useful experiments/aides/queries/skills/scripts with AI, and learning emerging patterns in Zero Trust, cloud security, AI platforms, and security data engineering.

This is a Remote role but** **candidates must live within commuting range of Reston, VA. Work is primarily from home, but frequently in customer spaces in Virginia or D.C., at the proposal center in Reston, at the Air Force Business Group in Crystal City, or on occasional travel. Candidates must be able to travel occasionally on short notice to support internal and external customer needs.

Assignments range from two-days to 50 percent time for nine months. Travel is occasional and usually short; some trips come on short notice; occasional trips can last up to six weeks, with longer trips planned in advance. Candidates must have an active Top Secret clearance, with SCI eligibility.

Responsibilities:

• Enter customer spaces on short cycle. Learn the stack and the people in days. Leave usable artifacts, not just a briefing deck
• If the space is new, thin, or stuck, drive the cyber team, then hand it back runnable. Consult contract cyber leads; do not replace them
• Assess cyber programs and customer environments against applicable cyber and security frameworks. Recommend solutions, modernization, automation, and next steps to mature the innovation space
• Work in Zero Trust, AI platform security, data engineering for security telemetry, and SIEM / SOC architecture and automation. Support growing efforts in AI governance and securing AI agents and tool gateways
• Apply RMF, CMMC, and ICD-705 in live spaces. Support incident response. Engineer and tune security and cloud architecture, endpoint platforms, DLP, IPS, and load-balancer / traffic paths
• Treat time-indexed data (what happened) and stateful data (what is true now) as complementary, and use platforms and vendor relationships so both exist and feed Zero Trust activity targets
• Troubleshoot with CLI first—Windows, Linux, security-tool CLIs, AWS Console and AWS CLI. Escalate with evidence
• Teach. Present white papers. Write job aids for new and old frameworks. Contribute technically to proposals

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree and 9 years of experience, or A Master’s degree and 7 years of experience
• U.S. citizen with an active Top Secret clearance and the ability to obtain SCI
• Must live within commuting range of Reston, VA. Work is primarily from home, with regular time in VA/D.C. customer spaces, the Reston proposal center, AF BG Crystal City, and occasional travel (some short notice)
• Current CompTIA Security+ CE or equivalent 8140 intermediate certification
• Typically 8+ years of hands-on cyber engineering, SOC / SIEM architecture, enablement, or equivalent at Senior Principal depth. Must be able to drive a team and advise a contract cyber lead
• Experience assessing cyber programs and environments against cyber and security frameworks, then recommending solutions, modernization, and automation. Proven work in customer spaces, including mixed classification, on a support-request cadence. Occasional travel; some short notice
• Technical depth in Zero Trust and AI platforms; data engineering applied to security telemetry; SIEM automation or SOC tooling and architecture. Splunk experience strongly preferred
• Working familiarity within RMF, CMMC, ICD-705, incident response, security architecture, cloud security architecture, endpoint security platforms, DLP, IPS, and load balancers
• Can clearly explain time-indexed vs. stateful data, why a security environment needs both, and how tooling and vendors provide both for Zero Trust activity targets
• Strong troubleshooting skills. Current CLI on Windows and Linux (PowerShell, Bash or equivalent). Hands-on AWS Console and AWS CLI (IAM, CloudTrail, GuardDuty, Security Hub, VPC / flow logs, S3, CloudWatch or equivalent)
• Communicates and teaches cleanly. Writes job aids and presents to mixed audiences (technical and non-technical)

Desired Qualifications

• Current SCI; TS/SCI with Poly is a plus for the high end of the Service Delivery customers
• Splunk Certified Admin, higher, or equivelant for security data engineering knowledge and experience yet not biased to any one tool. (Splunk, elastic, sentinal, etc…)
• CISSP or higher (ISSAP, ISSEP, or ISSMP) to cover GRC related assignments
• Additional current credentials in cloud, detection, architecture, or data (CCSP, CISM, GIAC, AWS / Azure security, CySA+ / CASP+, or equivalent)
• Proposal / capture technical consulting; published or internal white papers; prior enablement of mixed-skill cyber teams.
• Budding interest in AI governance and in securing AI agents and tool gateways
• Experience with SOAR, EDR / XDR, identity platforms, security data lakes, and securing AI / ML platforms (Azure OpenAI, Bedrock, on-prem model hosting, RAG / LLMOps controls)

Target salary range: $120,001 - $160,000. The estimate displayed represents the typical salary range for this position based on experience and other factors.

REQNUMBER: 2618265

SAIC is a premier technology integrator, solving our nation's most complex modernization and systems engineering challenges across the defense, space, federal civilian, and intelligence markets. Our robust portfolio of offerings includes high-end solutions in systems engineering and integration; enterprise IT, including cloud services; cyber; software; advanced analytics and simulation; and training. We are a team of 23,000 strong driven by mission, united purpose, and inspired by opportunity. Headquartered in Reston, Virginia, SAIC has annual revenues of approximately $6.5 billion. For more information, visit saic.com. For information on the benefits SAIC offers, see Working at SAIC. EOE AA M/F/Vet/Disability