Senior Vulnerability Research Engineer (Top Secret)

About the role

Parsons is looking for a senior engineer to lead vulnerability research and reverse‑engineering efforts on complex embedded and cyber‑physical systems for U.S. Government contracts. The role spans the full research lifecycle, from target analysis to exploit development and integration into operational cyber capabilities, and is performed onsite in Melbourne, Florida.

Key responsibilities

• Perform vulnerability research and reverse engineering on hardware and software embedded targets.
• Analyze firmware, binaries, protocols and system behavior to uncover exploitable flaws.
• Develop, test, debug and integrate exploits, cyber‑effects tools and supporting research capabilities.
• Apply static and dynamic analysis techniques using disassemblers, decompilers, debuggers, emulators and custom tooling.
• Mentor junior researchers, review technical approaches and document findings for internal and customer use.

Required profile

• U.S. citizenship with an active Top Secret clearance (SCI/SAP access required).
• Bachelor’s degree in a technical field and at least 8 years of relevant professional experience (or Master’s degree with 4 years).
• 5+ years of hands‑on vulnerability research, reverse engineering, exploit development or cyber‑tool development.

Required skills

• Strong programming in C, C++ and Python.
• Extensive use of decompilers/disassemblers such as Ghidra, IDA Pro or Binary Ninja.
• Experience with x86/x86‑64, ARM/AArch64 or MIPS instruction sets.
• Proficiency with debuggers, emulators, fuzzing frameworks and dynamic analysis tools.
• Knowledge of modern exploit mitigations (DEP/NX, ASLR, CFI, etc.) and operating‑system fundamentals.
• Understanding of networking protocols and low‑level hardware interfaces.