Lead Identity Cybersecurity Engineer
The MITRE Corporation · Colorado Springs, CO
$158,800–$238,200from the description
Jul 27, 2026
Colorado Springs, CO
Jul 28, 2026
What this job asks for AI summary
This role sits within MITRE's Cryptography, ICAM & System Assurance department, where the primary work is designing, engineering, and assessing Identity, Credential, and Access Management (ICAM) solutions for U.S. federal government sponsors. Day-to-day responsibilities span Zero Trust architecture design, authentication and federation engineering, identity governance, and privileged-access controls, with a significant on-site presence at government facilities. It suits an experienced ICAM practitioner comfortable operating in classified environments and advising senior government stakeholders.
Senior level · 6+ years · Washington-Arlington-Alexandria, DC-VA-MD-WV · Secret clearance · Full-time
“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.
What the occupation pays Median $152,225 (middle half $125,286–$177,673). This posting is about at that midpoint.
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 (9)
The posting lists a salary range of $158,800–$238,200 annually, with a stated midpoint of $198,500.
A Secret clearance is the hard gate; TS/SCI with CI polygraph is listed as preferred, not required.
The minimum experience floor depends on degree level: 8–10 years with a BS, 6–8 years with an MS, or 3–5 years with a PhD. Total years minimum is set to 6 (MS path, the most common graduate credential), but the actual floor could be as low as 3 (PhD) or as high as 8–10 (BS).
The role is classified as onsite with a minimum of 4 days per week at government-operated facilities; it is not remote-eligible.
The SOC classification is a judgement call: the role blends security analysis/architecture (15-1212) with broader systems/software engineering work (15-1299). 15-1212 was chosen because the primary day-to-day work centers on identity security architecture, threat assessment, and access-control policy — core information security analysis functions.
SAML and OIDC are listed together as interchangeable federation protocol examples; they are captured as a single skill with OIDC as an alternative. RBAC/ABAC/PBAC are similarly treated as interchangeable access-control model options.
No specific degree is hard-required; the posting accepts equivalent combinations of education and experience, so degree requirement is set to None.
Ignored 3 non-technology phrase(s) as skills (responsibilities/concepts, not named tools): Identity Governance & Administration, Systems engineering, Enterprise architecture.
Requires a Secret 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.
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