Information System Security Officers (ISSO), Senior Security Engineers & Security Engineering Leads

Job Description

Job Description

About Agile Defense

At Agile Defense we know that action defines the outcome and new challenges require new solutions. That’s why we always look to the future and embrace change with an unmovable spirit and the courage to build for what comes next.

Our vision is to bring adaptive innovation to support our nation's most important missions through the seamless integration of advanced technologies, elite minds, and unparalleled agility—leveraging a foundation of speed, flexibility, and ingenuity to strengthen and protect our nation’s vital interests.

Title : Information System Security Officers (ISSO), Senior Security Engineers & Security Engineering Leads (CBP)

Clearance : Active Top Secret with SCI eligibility, Ability to obtain and maintain a CBP Background Investigation (CBP BI) and EOD, active BI strongly preferred. We can begin processing for candidates who do not hold one.

Citizenship : U.S. Citizenship required

Location : Reston, VA - Hybrid 3 to 5 days

Salary Range : $140,000-190,000

Signing Bonus : $10,000 for candidates with an active CBP BI. Payable after 90 days; standard terms apply.

Required Certification(s) : One or more of the following: CISSO, CISM, CCSP, CEH, or other relevent equivilant 

The Work

U.S. Customs and Border Protection runs continuous operations across more than 300 land, air, and sea ports of entry, plus Border Patrol stations and the Air and Marine Operations Center. Security work here carries a cost that security work in a corporate environment does not. A control that blocks something at two in the morning at a remote checkpoint does not inconvenience an employee at a desk. It stops an officer from doing the thing they are standing there to do. Getting that judgment right, over and over, inside a federal authorization process, is most of the job.

We are hiring on two tracks. Information system security officers own whether systems stay authorized and whether the paperwork describing them is true. Senior security engineers own how systems are hardened, monitored, and fixed. You will work with network engineers, cloud engineers, field deployment teams, and the government security staff who have to be persuaded rather than informed.

One thing is worth knowing before you apply. There is more documentation and process in this work than either track usually wants. An engineer hoping to build tooling all day and an ISSO hoping to write packages undisturbed will both find the job wider than the title suggests.

What Success Looks Like

Objective 1: Close security findings at their cause rather than at the ticket

• Findings that get closed stay closed, instead of returning in the next scan under a new number.
• Remediation addresses why the condition existed, not only the instance a scanner happened to catch.
• Recurring finding types get traced back to the build, the process, or the standard that produced them.
• Where something cannot be fixed, the reason and the compensating control are written down and hold up when somebody challenges them.

⠀Objective 2: Get the security answer into a design while it can still change it

• Engineers bring you in early because your answer saves them work, not because a gate makes them.
• Requirements arrive in time to change a decision rather than to document one already made.
• You can tell an engineer what will and will not pass, and be right often enough that they stop checking around you.

⠀Objective 3: Give the program an accurate picture of its own security posture

• Somebody can ask about the state of a system and get an answer that is current rather than an answer from the last assessment.
• What is recorded as implemented matches what is running.
• Risk that leadership needs to know about reaches them while there is still a decision to make.

Where You'd Fit

This posting covers two disciplines, not two levels. An ISSO and a security engineer are not senior and junior versions of each other. They work opposite halves of the same problem, and the program needs both. Within the engineering discipline, Senior Security Engineer and Security Engineering Lead are levels. Tell us which discipline and level fit you and we will talk about it.

• Information System Security Officer. You own whether your assigned systems stay authorized and stay honestly described. You decide what counts as an acceptable control implementation, what belongs on a POA&M, and when a change needs a security review before it proceeds.
• Senior Security Engineer. You own how systems get hardened, monitored, and remediated. You decide what the secure configuration is, what tooling the program runs, and which risks get engineered out rather than accepted and tracked.
• Security Engineering Lead. You own the security engineering function as a whole, including the standards other engineers build against. You are accountable when a design meets a threat or an audit finding it did not anticipate.

What You Bring

Minimum required experience

• One or more of the following certifications required:
  • Active Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP)
  • Active Certified Information Security Manager (CISM)
  • Other relevant certifications (e.g., CCSP, CEH) may be considered.
• Bachelor’s degree in computer science, Engineering, STEM, Information Technology, or Cybersecurity
• A minimum of eight (8) years of experience in information security, with at least 5 years specifically in a lead ISSO or similar leadership capacity on large complex USG programs.

Preferred Experience

• Active CISSP
• Active Project Management Professional (PMP) certification
• Active ISC2 Certified in Governance, Risk and Compliance (CGRC)
• Knowledge of FedRAMP
• Knowledge of A-123 audit Experience and Expertise with GRC tools such as CSAM
• You have carried a system through authorization and can say what the hard part actually was.
• You have worked inside RMF or an equivalent federal authorization framework, not only a private-sector control set.
• You have closed a class of findings rather than a list of them, and can describe what you changed to make that stick.
• You have written or reviewed security documentation that somebody else then had to defend in front of a government reviewer.
• You have run continuous monitoring where the data was incomplete and had to be made useful anyway.
• You hold an active CBP BI, a fitness determination at another DHS component, or an active DoD clearance. Any of these shortens your start date.
• Certifications such as CISSP, CISM, CAP, or Security+ are useful, but they are not a substitute for having done the work.

A note on timing

We are staffing this program now. If you already hold an active CBP BI and EOD, your start date is short and a $10,000 signing bonus comes with the role, payable after 90 days under standard terms. We would like to talk this week.

If you do not, we can begin processing a CBP BI for you. That takes months rather than weeks, so applying now means joining a pipeline rather than starting immediately. We would rather tell you that up front than have you find out after you apply.

Employee Benefits

Agile's benefits offerings include, dependent upon position, Health Insurance, Life Insurance, Paid Time Off, Holiday Pay, short-term and long-term Disability, Retirement and Learning and Development opportunities as well as other optional benefit elections.

Our Core Values

Employees of Agile Defense are our number one priority, and the importance we place on our culture here is fundamental. Our culture is alive and evolving, but it always stays true to its roots. Here, you are valued as a family member, and we believe that we can accomplish great things together. Agile Defense has been highly successful in the past few years due to our employees and the culture we create together. 

What makes us Agile? We call it the 6Hs, the values that define our culture and guide everything we do. Together, these values infuse vibrancy, integrity, and a tireless work ethic into advancing the most important national security and critical civilian missions. It's how we show up every day. It's who we are.

• Happy - Be Infectious. Happiness multiplies and creates a positive and connected environment where motivation and satisfaction have an outsized effect on everything we do.
• Helpful - Be Supportive. Being helpful is the foundation of teamwork, resulting in a supportive atmosphere where collaboration flourishes, and collective success is celebrated.
• Honest - Be Trustworthy. Honesty serves as our compass, ensuring transparent communication and ethical conduct, essential to who we are and the complex domains we support.
• Humble - Be Grounded. Success is not achieved alone, humility ensures a culture of mutual respect, encouraging open communication, and a willingness to learn from one another and take on any task.
• Hungry - Be Eager. Our hunger for excellence drives an insatiable appetite for innovation and continuous improvement, propelling us forward in the face of new and unprecedented challenges.
• Hustle - Be Driven. Hustle is reflected in our relentless work ethic, where we are each committed to going above and beyond to advance the mission and achieve success.

Equal Opportunity Employer/Protected Veterans/Individuals with Disabilities

We may use artificial intelligence (AI) tools to support parts of the hiring process, such as reviewing applications, analyzing resumes, or assessing responses and identifying potential inconsistencies or verification signals in application materials based on available information. These tools assist our recruitment team but do not replace human judgment. Final hiring decisions are ultimately made by humans. If you would like more information about how your data is processed, please contact us.