Alternate Lead Senior Information Systems Security Officer

Job Description

Job Description

Alternate Lead Senior Information Systems Security Officer

Position Summary

The Alternate Lead Senior Information Systems Security Officer performs senior ISSO duties for assigned systems and provides immediate continuity when the Lead is unavailable. The Alternate must be capable of assuming the Lead’s technical, supervisory, quality-control, stakeholder, and reporting responsibilities without service degradation.

Position Details

Employment: Full-time and dedicated to DFC

Place of Performance: Hybrid at DFC Headquarters, 1100 New York Avenue NW, Washington, DC 20527. The employee must work on site at least two days per week. The remaining work may be performed remotely within the continental United States.

Coverage: Provides staggered coverage with the Lead during DFC core business hours and assumes Lead duties during planned or unplanned absences.

Security: U.S. citizenship is required. The employee must satisfy DFC suitability requirements and be eligible for a Tier 4 High-Risk Public Trust investigation.

Reporting: Reports to the Lead Senior ISSO and interfaces directly with the DFC Information System Security Manager, System Owners, technical teams, assessors, and governance bodies as assigned.

Primary Responsibilities

• Perform senior ISSO duties for assigned DFC systems and maintain current authorization, risk, vulnerability, POA&M, continuous monitoring, audit, and documentation status.
• Assume the Lead Senior ISSO’s full responsibilities during scheduled or unscheduled absences.
• Maintain uninterrupted technical direction, stakeholder communication, deliverable control, reporting, and issue escalation when serving in the Lead capacity.
• Lead assigned Risk Management Framework, continuous monitoring, vulnerability management, POA&M, change management, incident coordination, audit support, or compliance workstreams.
• Develop and maintain CSAM authorization packages, control implementation statements, assessment evidence, POA&M records, System Security Plans, risk assessments, privacy documentation, contingency artifacts, and related security records.
• Review Splunk, Qualys, endpoint, identity, cloud, configuration, and ticketing data to identify security-posture changes, control weaknesses, emerging risks, and required follow-up actions.
• Coordinate remediation activities with System Owners and technical teams.
• Validate closure evidence, track milestone dates, and escalate overdue or high-risk items to the Lead Senior ISSO and DFC Information System Security Manager.
• Conduct security impact analyses for proposed changes and document their effects on authorization boundaries, security controls, privacy requirements, system documentation, and continuous monitoring activities.
• Support incident response by providing system context, authorization-boundary information, affected-control analysis, situation-report inputs, root-cause support, and post-incident corrective-action tracking.
• Coordinate audit and assessment evidence for assigned systems.
• Respond to evidence requests within required timelines, perform completeness and traceability checks, and track findings through resolution.
• Perform peer reviews and quality checks of ISSO work products before submission.
• Identify inconsistent artifacts, missing evidence, stale information, documentation gaps, and unresolved cross-system dependencies.
• Prepare status reports, dashboards, risk summaries, authorization updates, POA&M aging reports, audit-readiness information, and management recommendations.
• Participate in daily stand-ups, weekly ISSO synchronization meetings, governance forums, technical reviews, and transition or knowledge-transfer activities.
• Maintain proficiency in DFC authoritative tools and repositories.
• Cross-train assigned personnel to preserve continuity during absences, vacancies, system-access delays, or surge periods.
• Support the Lead Senior ISSO in maintaining contract-level risk, issue, staffing, quality, and performance information.

Required Conditions

• Must be a United States citizen. Dual citizenship remains subject to Government review and adjudication.
• Must be eligible for and capable of satisfying Tier 4 High-Risk Public Trust requirements.
• A current, in-scope federal investigation or suitability determination is strongly preferred because reciprocity and processing timelines are not guaranteed.
• Must be available to support the 15-calendar-day transition period.
• Must work on site at DFC Headquarters at least two days per week and provide additional on-site support when requested on a case-by-case basis.
• Must maintain the qualifications, certifications, suitability, and availability approved at contract award throughout the period of performance.
• Must possess sufficient technical and leadership depth to assume the Lead role immediately and perform without service degradation.

Recommended Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in cybersecurity, information technology, computer science, information systems, engineering, or a related field. Equivalent specialized federal cybersecurity experience may be considered.
• Eight or more years of progressively responsible cybersecurity experience.
• At least five years of experience performing federal ISSO, Risk Management Framework, assessment and authorization, governance, risk, or compliance work.
• At least two years of experience leading complex Risk Management Framework, continuous monitoring, vulnerability, POA&M, audit, or authorization workstreams across multiple systems.
• Demonstrated experience supporting FISMA Moderate systems and producing high-quality, audit-ready authorization and compliance artifacts under firm deadlines.
• Experience supporting initial authorizations, annual assessments, reauthorizations, continuous monitoring, vulnerability management, change assessments, incident coordination, and audits.
• One advanced cybersecurity certification such as CISSP, CGRC or CAP, CISM, or GSLC. CISSP or CGRC is preferred.
• Additional cloud-security, audit, incident-response, or vulnerability-management credentials are advantageous.
• Strong technical writing, briefing, facilitation, problem-solving, peer-review, and stakeholder-coordination skills.

Technical Competencies

• NIST Risk Management Framework and applicable federal cybersecurity requirements, including NIST SP 800-37, 800-53, 800-53A, 800-137, 800-128, 800-30, and 800-39.
• FIPS 199, FISMA, OMB Circular A-130, applicable CISA Binding Operational Directives, and Emergency Directives.
• Hands-on use of CSAM or comparable governance, risk, compliance, and authorization platforms for authorization packages, control evidence, POA&Ms, assessment results, and workflow status.
• Working proficiency with ServiceNow, Splunk, Qualys or comparable vulnerability platforms, Microsoft Defender, Microsoft Intune, BigFix, Microsoft Azure, Microsoft 365, Microsoft Entra ID, Okta, Palo Alto Panorama, Zscaler, and SharePoint.
• Continuous monitoring, vulnerability and configuration analysis, POA&M lifecycle support, change impact analysis, incident coordination, audit response, and evidence management.
• Zero Trust concepts, FedRAMP inheritance, Customer Responsibility Matrices, Shared Responsibility Matrices, CIS Benchmarks, DISA Security Technical Implementation Guides, and secure configuration baselines.