Reverse Engineer Researcher

About the role 

The SEI helps advance software engineering principles and practices and serves as a national resource in software engineering, computer security, and process improvement. The SEI works closely with defense and government organizations, industry, and academia to continually improve software-intensive systems. Our core purpose is to help organizations improve software engineering capabilities and develop or acquire the right software, defect free, within budget and on time, every time.  
  
The CERT Division of the Software Engineering Institute (SEI) is seeking an applicant for the role of a Reverse Engineer Researcher for the Threat Analysis directorate. The SEI is a federally funded research and development center at Carnegie Mellon University.   

 What you’ll do  

• Reverse engineer malicious code in support of high-impact customers, design and develop new analysis methods and tools, work to identify and address emerging and complex threats, and effectively participate in the broader security community  

• Perform in-depth reverse engineering of malicious code, document and transition results in reports, presentations, and technical exchanges  

• Explore ways to use artificial intelligence to support of reverse engineering and apply reverse engineering practices to artificial intelligence systems 

• Design, prototype, and transition new analysis methods and tools  

• Identify and document emerging and complex active security threats  

• Participate in the broader security community through collaboration, papers, and presentations  

Who you are   

• You have BS in Computer Science or related discipline with eight (8) years of experience; OR MS in the same fields with five (5) years of experience; OR PhD in the same fields with two (2) years of experience. 

• You enjoy working on emerging and complex malware analysis and reverse engineering problems. 

• You have an analytical mindset and deep curiosity about how software works. 

• You have the ability to balance rapid prototyping with maintainable tool development. 

• You have strong technical writing experience. 

• You recognize and deal appropriately with confidential and sensitive information. 

• You are able to handle continual shifting priorities. 

• You enjoy mentoring and training others as well as sharing knowledge.  

• You communicate effectively with technical and non-technical audiences.  

• You have a willingness to travel to various locations to support the SEI’s overall mission This includes sponsor sites, conferences, and offsite meetings on occasion. Moderate Travel (15%)  

• You will be subject to a background check and obtain and maintain an active Department of Defense security clearance  

You have experience with or knowledge of  

• Reverse engineering software binaries for a variety of architectures, both at the user level and kernel level 

• Static analysis tools (e.g. IDA Pro, NSA Ghidra, Binary Ninja)