Principal ISSO: Cybersecurity Risk Lead (Onsite DC)

ZipStaff Inc.; Washington (District of Columbia); On-site; USD 150,000 - 190,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Health Insurance

Dental Insurance

Vision Insurance

401(k) + matching

Paid time off

Referral Program

Job summary

ZipStaff is hiring a Principal Information System Security Officer (ISSO) for our client, a major U.S. passenger rail transportation organization based in Washington, DC.

You will serve as an embedded cybersecurity subject matter expert and risk advisor, championing secure-by-design principles across enterprise Agile Release Trains and ensuring security controls are built into architecture and delivery from the start.

Qualifications

• 10+ years of cybersecurity experience, including 5+ years as an ISSO.
• Experience embedding security governance in Agile/SAFe and CI/CD pipelines.
• Deep knowledge of NIST SP 800-series, FISMA, FedRAMP, ISO 27001 and CIS Benchmarks.

Responsibilities

• Provide cybersecurity design oversight, threat modeling and risk governance across Agile Release Trains and delivery pipelines.
• Embed security architectures and baseline controls early in the SDLC to reduce technical debt and deployment risk.
• Act as the primary cybersecurity liaison between product managers, enterprise architects, engineering teams and senior stakeholders.
• Author and evaluate SSPs, RARs, SAPs and POA&Ms.
• Ensure compliance with NIST SP 800-37, 800-53, FISMA, FedRAMP and internal governance directives.
• Partner with engineering leads to operationalize DevSecOps, automate continuous monitoring and enforce secure coding and configuration standards.
• Facilitate risk-based trade‑off decisions, review architecture deviations and lead remediation of complex vulnerabilities.

Skills

Cybersecurity leadership

Risk governance

DevSecOps

Cloud security

NIST RMF

CI/CD security

Security architecture

Leadership to stakeholders

Education

CISSP

CISM

CRISC

CCSP

CISA

Tools

AWS

Azure

GCP

Job description

ZipStaff is hiring a Principal Information System Security Officer (ISSO) for our client, a major U.S. passenger rail transportation organization based in Washington, DC.

You will serve as an embedded cybersecurity subject matter expert and risk advisor, championing secure-by-design principles across enterprise Agile Release Trains and ensuring security controls are built into architecture and delivery from the start.