Cyber Security Project Engineer (Penetration Tester) at Ardent Principles, Inc.
Herndon, VA
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Jul 13, 2026
Herndon, VA
Jul 20, 2026
What this job asks for AI summary
A full-time, onsite penetration testing role focused on evaluating enterprise-level systems by applying attack methods, exploitation techniques, and network analysis. Day-to-day work involves designing and testing security architectures, analyzing network configurations, and translating findings into risk and threat mitigation plans. Suited to experienced cybersecurity professionals holding an active TS/SCI clearance with Full Scope Polygraph.
Senior level · Washington-Arlington-Alexandria, DC-VA-MD-WV · TS/SCI clearance · Full-time
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
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 (7)
An active TS/SCI with Full Scope Polygraph is an explicit hard gate — candidates without it will not be considered.
The role is fully onsite in Herndon, VA; no remote or hybrid option is mentioned.
No overall years-of-experience figure is stated; seniority is inferred from the breadth and depth of required skills (enterprise systems, hypervisors, adversarial tactics, risk management methodologies).
CEH, OSCP, and GPEN certifications and a Bachelor's degree are listed under 'Highly Desired Qualifications' as explicitly 'not mandatory' — treated as preferred accordingly.
No compensation figures are provided beyond a general reference to 'highly competitive salary.'
Ignored 2 non-technology phrase(s) as skills (responsibilities/concepts, not named tools): network security analysis, security architecture.
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
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