What We Do

Our team in the Cyber Risk and Resilience Directorate researches and develops software tools capable of collecting, storing, and analyzing organizational network data to provide security analysts insights into what is traversing their network. We provide both the core network tools to facilitate this capability, and prototypes of new ways to present the data effectively. We deal with a scale of network data generally unseen by most organizations, handling record counts in the tens of billions per day.

Developing security insights at this scale requires creativity, efficiency, and staying up to date with modern computing platforms. In some cases, the computing has outpaced the methods, and it is incumbent upon us to generate novel views of both the entire data collection, and of focused datasets tailored to specific analyst needs.

Our network situational awareness security tools are published here: https://tools.netsa.cert.org/

Position Summary

You'll be responsible for developing software within our network data collection suite and pushing the bounds of the uses of those tools. Much of the software is written in C, and some in Python. We are responsible for the entire life-cycle of the tools: requirements gathering/generation, development, testing, documentation, and user support.

There is room for independence for new tools or projects to make our software suite more complete. Making the tools easy to integrate and deploy, along with writing documentation are additional tasks for the position. You will work on existing projects with more senior developers until you have a grasp of the tool suite and gain domain expertise to take command of new or current tools.

You bring the design and software skills, and we'll bring the domain knowledge to solve the hard network security data problems.

Knowledge, Skills and Abilities

• Polished to expert programming skills in C.
• Proficient scripting skills with bash.
• Strong problem-solving skills.
• Ability to learn a new programming language or development environment given appropriate time and resources.
• Ability to work both independently and with teams, manage multiple projects, and elicit technical requirements from management and staff.

Requirements

• Education and Experience: BS degree in Computer Science, Statistics, Engineering, Mathematics, Economics, Data Science, or a related highly quantitative discipline with eight (8) years of applicable experience; or a MS degree in a relevant discipline with five (5) years of applicable experience; or a PhD in a relevant discipline with two (2) years of applicable experience.
• Travel: Periodic travel to customer sites, conferences, workshops, and stakeholder meetings is required to support the SEI's mission and research activities.
• Security Clearance: You will be subject to a background investigation and must have the ability to obtain and maintain a Department of War security clearance.
• Applicants for this position must be currently legally authorized to work for CMU in the United States. CMU will not sponsor or take over sponsorship of an employment visa for this opportunity.

Duties

• Software Development (70%): Design, develop, and maintain high-performance software tools for collecting, processing, and analyzing large-scale network data using C, Python, and Bash. Participate in the full software development lifecycle, including requirements analysis, implementation, testing, deployment, and ongoing enhancement of cybersecurity research tools.
• Customer Support (10%): Provide technical support by troubleshooting software issues, responding to user inquiries, and resolving reported defects. Collaborate with customers and stakeholders to gather feedback and recommend improvements to existing tools.
• Documentation/Publication (10%): Prepare and maintain technical documentation, including user guides, installation instructions, and developer documentation. Contribute to technical reports, presentations, and publications that communicate software capabilities and research outcomes.
• Testing (10%): Develop and execute unit, integration, and regression tests to ensure software quality, reliability, and performance. Identify, troubleshoot, and resolve software defects while supporting continuous improvement of testing processes.

Desired Experience

• Primary developer / project lead for a completed software project. Exposure to all phases of software development from requirements gathering to delivery. The feeling of ownership of the project.
• An understanding of software / systems development lifecycle, QA testing, revision control, and change management practices
• Experience developing software on Linux is preferred but not a requirement.
• Experience working with containerization tools such as Docker is preferred.
• Experience with network data collection or flow data, or awareness of network cyber threats is a plus, but not a requirement. It is our responsibility to transfer domain knowledge.