Principal System Architect – SME

This is a fully remote position, open to applicants in Virginia.

📋 Description

• Lead and provide technical oversight to senior systems architects and engineers, offering daily guidance and mentorship.

• Consult with the project manager regarding workload allocation and staffing needs.

• Develop and support a federal agency’s migration strategy for Post-Quantum Cryptography in accordance with NIST standards and CNSA 2.0.

• Perform a cryptographic inventory and discovery to pinpoint systems, protocols, and data repositories at risk of quantum decryption.

• Set crypto-agility standards and offer advice on hybrid classical/PQC implementation methodologies.

• Assess ML-KEM, ML-DSA, and SLH-DSA for enterprise applications, performance limitations, and system specifications.

• Collect and formulate enterprise cybersecurity architecture requirements with federal stakeholders.

• Create software, hardware, and communications design architectures.

• Design, implement, and establish baseline configurations for enterprise cybersecurity capabilities.

• Validate and verify implementations and configuration adjustments to ensure they meet intended security objectives.

• Develop policies that align with CISA maturity models, NIST standards, and federal guidelines.

• Encourage collaboration among government and contractor teams.

• Prepare briefings, presentations, and written materials that communicate program status, risk mitigation, and overall value.

⛳️ Requirements

• Over 10 years of experience in systems architecture, including technical supervision and direction for senior architects and personnel.

• Current Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP) or Certified Information Security Manager (CISM) certification.

• Experience in designing and implementing enterprise cybersecurity architectures and capabilities.

• Proven ability to develop enterprise cybersecurity architecture requirements in collaboration with clients and stakeholders.

• Experience in baselining enterprise cybersecurity capability configurations and validating and verifying both implementations and ongoing configuration changes.

• Proven track record of creating policies that comply with CISA maturity models and NIST standards.

• Familiarity with PKI, key management, and certificate lifecycle management.

• Demonstrated ability to lead teams, foster collaboration among stakeholders, and effectively communicate complex technical subjects to both technical and executive audiences through briefings, presentations, and written reports.

• Proven capacity to analyze intricate requirements and convert them into clear, actionable tasks and processes through critical thinking.

• Applicants must be U.S. citizens in accordance with federal contract obligations.

• Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Computer Science, Cybersecurity, Mathematics, Engineering, or a related field (beneficial).

• Understanding of PQC standards, such as NIST-selected ML-KEM (FIPS 203), ML-DSA (FIPS 204), SLH-DSA (FIPS 205), and CNSA 2.0.

• Knowledge of crypto-agility, hybrid cryptographic implementations, PKI, key management, and certificate lifecycle management.

• Awareness of enterprise cybersecurity architecture across software, hardware, and network communications.

• Familiarity with federal cybersecurity frameworks, including the NIST SP 800-series, NIST Cybersecurity Framework, and CISA maturity models.

• Understanding of enterprise network architecture and cryptography.

• Knowledge of cloud, hybrid, and multi-cloud security architecture, FedRAMP, and cloud key management.

• Beneficial experience with PQC architectures, cryptographic inventories, hybrid key exchange, discovery tools, CBOMs, FIPS 140-3, HSMs, federal PQC policy, Zero Trust, federal cloud platforms, PMP, and cloud security certifications.

🏝️ Benefits

• 144 hours of paid time off (PTO).

• 11 holidays observed.

• 85% of insurance premiums covered.

• 401(k) retirement plan.

• Opportunities for continuing education.

• Support for certification maintenance and reimbursement.

• Career development opportunities available.

• Healthcare benefits through major carriers.