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The MITRE Corporation

Senior Embedded Software Reverse Engineer

The MITRE Corporation, Bedford, Massachusetts, us, 01730


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Department Summary:

MITRE’s Electronic Systems Development and Embedded Security department is seeking to hire talented and creative reverse engineers with a focus on embedded software reverse engineering to support advanced research and development projects of national significance. Our reverse engineering teams perform in-depth analyses of embedded software to understand its operation, identify threats, and recognize opportunities that enable our customers to accomplish their missions. They additionally develop software tools to enable, accelerate, and scale analyses as well as deliver fieldable capabilities. With diverse customers and missions, our teams tackle a rich variety of embedded software including bare metal firmware, real-time operating system firmware, the Linux kernel, user-space binaries, and more.

Qualified candidates will join a department with broad technical expertise across many embedded security disciplines including software reverse engineering, hardware reverse engineering, secure computing, and implementation security. Together, this multi-disciplinary group performs hands-on research and analysis and develops proof-of-concept prototypes to demonstrate and advance the state-of-the-art in embedded security.

Roles and Responsibilities:

Engineers in this role will develop and apply their technical expertise to:

Reverse engineer and perform security assessments of complex embedded software

Prototype advanced capabilities in hardware and software to solve challenging customer problems

Guide project teams and shape research strategies to realize and deliver solutions for our customers

Define and lead efforts to create the software necessary to enable, accelerate, and scale reverse engineering and capability development

Communicate project strategy, risk, and results to MITRE program leaders and our customers

Research emerging threats to embedded systems and countermeasures

Mentor junior engineers in reverse engineering, software analysis, and capability development

Collaborate with academic partners to improve embedded security education at our nation’s universities and high schools

Basic Qualifications:

Typically requires a minimum of 5 years of related experience with a Bachelor’s degree; or 3 years and a Master’s degree; or a PhD without experience in Computer Science or similar field ; or equivalent combination of related education and work experience.

Must be US citizen capable of obtaining and maintaining a Top Secret security clearance

Expertise in reverse engineering software binaries/embedded firmware and having practical experience with disassemblers, decompilers, firmware unpacking, common executable file formats, and debuggers

Expertise reverse engineering for one or more embedded processor architectures, preferably ARM

Expertise in modern binary exploitation techniques and countermeasures with practical experience in software vulnerability analysis and exploitation development

Experience developing software with C/C++ and Python

Experience developing low-level software (e.g., embedded systems/microcontrollers, kernels, and/or device drivers)

Effective oral and written communication skills

This position requires a minimum of 4 days a week on-site

Preferred Qualifications:

Bachelor’s degree in Electrical or Computer Engineering, Computer Science or similar field with 8 years of related experience; Master’s degree in the same with 6 years of related experience; or PhD in the same with 3 years of related experience

Possess an active Secret or Top Secret security clearance

Experience leading teams developing or evaluating secure embedded systems

Experience with one or more of the following technical areas:

Fuzz testing software applications or embedded firmware

Instrumentation/debug of embedded software or firmware

Firmware rehosting and peripheral modeling

Symbolic analysis

Linux kernel, kernel derivers, or real-time operating systems

Commercial embedded and/or hardware security technologies such as ARM TrustZone, Trusted Platform Modules, Boot Guard, Secure Boot, etc.

This requisition requires the candidate to have a minimum of the following clearance(s):

None

This requisition requires the hired candidate to have or obtain, within one year from the date of hire, the following clearance(s):

Top Secret/SCI

Work Location Type:

Hybrid

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