Cyber Software Engineer

Description

We are seeking a motivated Cyber Software Engineer with strong foundations in offensive cyber, lowlevel engineering, and handson redteam tooling. In this role, you will contribute to the design, development, and prototyping of advanced cyber capabilities targeting modern computing environments, embedded systems, and hardened platforms.

This position is ideal for an engineer who has demonstrated exceptional initiative in offensive tooling, hardwareassisted security research, and adversary simulation, and who is ready to grow into a fullspectrum cyber researcher under the guidance of other engineers.

The ideal candidate brings experience in redteam operations, embedded systems experimentation, malware/tooling development, and AIassisted security research, with a strong desire to expand into vulnerability research, exploit development, and missionaligned capability engineering.

Primary Responsibilities

• Contribute to offensive cyber research initiatives, including vulnerability exploration, capability prototyping, and analysis of modern and embedded systems.

• Develop and maintain offensive security tools, redteam automation frameworks, and missionoriented software components.

• Support reverse engineering tasks across binaries, firmware, and hardwareadjacent systems to understand behavior, identify weaknesses, and inform capability development.

• Assist in designing and evaluating evasionresistant payloads, covert communication mechanisms, and persistence techniques for realistic adversary simulation.

• Prototype automation and AIdriven approaches for reconnaissance, decisionmaking, and redteam workflow acceleration.

• Analyze adversarial tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs) to support realistic threat emulation and capability design.

• Collaborate with other engineers, hardware researchers, and mission teams to integrate software, embedded, and AIdriven components into cohesive research prototypes.

• Document research findings, prototype behavior, and operational concepts for technical and operational audiences.

• Participate in internal redteam exercises, capability evaluations, and iterative testing cycles to refine tools and methodologies.

• Stay current with emerging offensive techniques, hardwareassisted attack vectors, and adversarial AI research trends.

Basic Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Engineering, Computer Science, Cybersecurity, or related field. Degree must be completed by start date.

• Strong programming experience in C/C++ and Python, with demonstrated ability to build offensive tooling or lowlevel software.

• Experience with reverse engineering fundamentals, including firmware analysis, hardware interfaces, or binary inspection.

• Handson experience with redteam operations, penetration testing, or adversary simulation.

• Familiarity with embedded systems, microcontrollers, or FPGAbased development.

• Understanding of networking fundamentals, security vulnerabilities, and common attack techniques.

• Ability to communicate technical concepts clearly in both written and verbal formats.

• Demonstrated initiative through research projects, opensource contributions, or published work.

• US citizenship is required.

• Ability to obtain and maintain a Top Secret/SCI with Polygraph clearance.

Preferred Qualifications

• .Active TS/SCI security clearance with Polygraph.

• Experience developing or modifying offensive security tools.

• Familiarity with EDR evasion concepts, covert communications, or payload staging.

• Experience with hardware security research, sidechannel analysis, or hardware Trojan detection.

• Background in AI/ML applied to cybersecurity (e.g., neural architecture search, AIassisted detection, agentic tooling).

• Exposure to reverse engineering tools such as Ghidra, Binary Ninja, or IDA Pro.

• Experience with embedded debugging interfaces (JTAG, UART, SPI) or firmware modification.

• Contributions to security research communities, publications, or opensource offensive tooling.

• Familiarity with cloud environments, containerization, or DevOps workflows.

If you're looking for comfort, keep scrolling. At Leidos, we outthink, outbuild, and outpace the status quo - because the mission demands it. We're not hiring followers. We're recruiting the ones who disrupt, provoke, and refuse to fail. Step 10 is ancient history. We're already at step 30 - and moving faster than anyone else dares.

For U.S. Positions: While subject to change based on business needs, Leidos reasonably anticipates that this job requisition will remain open for at least 3 days with an anticipated close date of no earlier than 3 days after the original posting date as listed above.

The Leidos pay range for this job level is a general guideline onlyand not a guarantee of compensation or salary. Additional factors considered in extending an offer include (but are not limited to) responsibilities of the job, education, experience, knowledge, skills, and abilities, as well as internal equity, alignment with market data, applicable bargaining agreement (if any), or other law.

About Leidos

Leidos is an industry and technology leader serving government and commercial customers with smarter, more efficient digital and mission innovations. Headquartered in Reston, Virginia, with 47,000 global employees, Leidos reported annual revenues of approximately $16.7 billion for the fiscal year ended January 3, 2025. For more information, visit www.Leidos.com.

Pay and Benefits

Pay and benefits are fundamental to any career decision. That's why we craft compensation packages that reflect the importance of the work we do for our customers. Employment benefits include competitive compensation, Health and Wellness programs, Income Protection, Paid Leave and Retirement. More details are available at www.leidos.com/careers/pay-benefits.

Securing Your Data

Beware of fake employment opportunities using Leidos' name. Leidos will never ask you to provide payment-related information during any part of the employment application process (i.e., ask you for money), nor will Leidos ever advance money as part of the hiring process (i.e., send you a check or money order before doing any work). Further, Leidos will only communicate with you through emails that are generated by the Leidos.com automated system - never from free commercial services (e.g., Gmail, Yahoo, Hotmail) or via WhatsApp, Telegram, etc. If you received an email purporting to be from Leidos that asks for payment-related information or any other personal information (e.g., about you or your previous employer), and you are concerned about its legitimacy, please make us aware immediately by emailing us at LeidosCareersFraud@leidos.com.

If you believe you are the victim of a scam, contact your local law enforcement and report the incident to the U.S. Federal Trade Commission.

Commitment to Non-Discrimination

All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to sex, race, ethnicity, age, national origin, citizenship, religion, physical or mental disability, medical condition, genetic information, pregnancy, family structure, marital status, ancestry, domestic partner status, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, veteran or military status, or any other basis prohibited by law. Leidos will also consider for employment qualified applicants with criminal histories consistent with relevant laws.

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