Space Systems Security R&D Engineer

Job Description

Our space systems cyber-resiliency team brings together multi-disciplinary scientists and engineers to understand cyber threats to space systems and conduct foundational research in secure-by-design safety-critical systems.  As a member of this team, you will help conceive, design, prototype, and transition cyber-resiliency technologies to critical space domain operational partners such as the DoD, Intelligence Community, and NASA. Your contributions and ideas will fly on orbit-demonstrators, and act as pathfinders toward exciting new capabilities for securing space systems.  Your role won’t be limited to the Laboratory alone. It will extend into engagement with the larger national security space community, where your insights will advise in creating military and civil space systems that can operate through and recover from concerted cyberattack by nation-state actors.

Cybersecurity does not exist in a vacuum. It is intimately tied to the mission systems that an adversary seeks to hold at risk. Your expertise, whether in aerospace, electrical engineering, computer science, or another related field, can help unite cyber-resiliency research with the physical constraints and operational realities of space systems. This is why we consider diversity of expertise one of our greatest strengths. As part of this diverse team, you will have the opportunity to expand your technical breadth and depth by working with talented staff from many academic backgrounds.

As a space systems security engineer, you will be a highly valued member of our team. You will be responsible for architecting and prototyping new technologies on small project teams, helping in their hands-on implementation, and building testbed infrastructures to validate them. You will work across teams to promote a cooperative and inclusive culture. You will also contribute to the larger community through open academic publications and engagement with government sponsors.

Requirements

• Master’s degree in Software Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Aerospace/Astronautic Engineering, Computer Science, or related field
  • In lieu of a Master’s, a Bachelor’s degree with 3 or more years of relevant experience will be considered.
• Academic or professional system prototyping experience and/or publications in the areas of space systems architectures, space system design, systems cybersecurity, applied cryptography, or related focus areas.
• Architecture, analysis, design, implementation, and testing/verification of space systems, or security technologies.
• The ability to excel with limited oversight and a passion to convert vision into reality
• Effective communication skills and an eagerness to help mentor other staff members
• Self-motivated individual enthusiastic to work in an interdisciplinary environment and broaden their technical experience

Desired

A wide range of backgrounds are applicable, including:

• Space system design, implementation, and operation. Familiarity with the design and CONOPs of existing civil and military space systems.
• Flight (or other relevant control) software internals. Design and implementation of modular flight software and middleware such as NASA cFS.
• Embedded systems engineering. Design and development of embedded systems (FPGAs, system-on-chip, IP cores, soft-cores); VHDL.x
• System security engineering. Threat modeling and security requirements analysis.
• Software engineering and design and development in Rust and C/C++; Familiarity with secure programming and the software development lifecycle, including design, documentation, and testing.
• Real-time operating system internals, especially micro-kernel approaches for least-privilege operations. Experience with seL4.