Principal Cybersecurity Engineer (Starshield)

Builds and leads the Starshield cyber defence team at SpaceX from Washington, DC: a group of hands-on engineers who develop and continually test the defences of the company's US government satellite constellation and stand ready to respond immediately to any live attack.

The principal engineer hires and develops the team and puts Starshield's cyber defence strategy into practice, studying emerging threats, building countermeasures tailored to the system, and running frequent red-team style exercises that both uncover vulnerabilities and drill the team's response playbook. Vulnerability discovery across Starshield is theirs to lead, through internal bug hunts, a culture of curious exploration, and AI and other modern tools that speed up finding and fixing flaws. They also push for better incident detection and response, working with the team that builds SpaceX's internal security event detection systems and with engineers implementing security features.

The role calls for a computing or security degree and at least seven years securing production systems, or ten years of such work without a degree, along with experience managing direct reports and building detection and response capability. Preferred experience includes networks and large-scale distributed computing, vulnerability triage, red or blue team assessments and continuity of operations planning. Obtaining and holding a Top Secret clearance is a condition of employment, and extended hours are sometimes required.