Principal Information Security Engineer (supporting Naval Research Lab)
ASRC Federal · Welcome, MD
$120,000–$190,000
Jul 1, 2026
Welcome, MD
Jul 20, 2026
What this job asks for AI summary
A senior-level information security engineering role supporting a government tracking facility in Maryland under the Naval Research Lab. Day-to-day work centers on maintaining and upgrading network security posture, monitoring for intrusions, conducting vulnerability scans, and performing incident response. The role suits an experienced security engineer with a background in RMF, DoD STIGs, Red Hat/Windows environments, and tools such as ACAS, Nessus, or SIEM platforms, and requires eligibility for a TS/SCI clearance.
Senior level · 8+ years · Washington-Arlington-Alexandria, DC-VA-MD-WV · TS/SCI clearance · Full-time
Advertised as Principal, but the requirements read as Senior.
“or” means any one of them counts — you don't need all of them.
We read this from the posting text with AI. Skim the description below before ruling yourself out.
How this req sits in the market our data
Rare in this occupation — lead with these, and say what you built with them.
Most people in this occupation already list these. Still required — just not what gets you shortlisted.
What the occupation pays Median $152,225 (middle half $125,286–$177,673).
Estimated from BLS employment for this occupation and area, per-skill prevalence across our listing corpus, and published wage benchmarks — as of Jul 28, 2026. It is a model, not a headcount.
Why we read it this way (8)
The title 'Senior Principal' is an unusual compound level; advertised seniority is mapped to Principal (the higher of the two words), while the actual requirements (8 years, single-site scope) support a Senior band.
The degree requirement states 'Bachelor's degree or equivalent' — because equivalent experience is explicitly accepted, the degree requirement is set to None.
TS/SCI clearance is a hard gate: the JD states the candidate must 'obtain and maintain a TS/SCI security clearance.'
CISSP/CISM and DoD 8140/8570.1 IAM Level 3 are listed as 'desired,' not required.
Network security tools (Nessus, FireEye, Suricata, Palo Alto) and SIEM tools (LogRhythm, ArcSight, NetWitness, Splunk, AlienVault) are both described as 'highly desired,' so they are marked preferred.
The role is on-site at Blossom Point Tracking Facility in Welcome, MD, which falls within the Washington-Arlington-Alexandria DC-VA-MD-WV CBSA.
No compensation figures were provided in the posting.
Requires a TS/SCI clearance — the cleared population is a small fraction of this occupation, so the real candidate pool is materially smaller than the estimate below, which does not model clearance.
Read the full posting
The employer publishes the full description on their own site — read it there ↗. Or sign in to read it here — it's free, and it also lets you track this application.