The professionals at the National Security Agency (NSA) have one common goal - to protect our nation and its interests. The mission requires a strong offense and a steadfast defense. The offense collects, processes, and disseminates information derived from foreign signals for intelligence and counterintelligence purposes. The defense prevents adversaries from gaining access to classified national security information. At a time of 'great power' competition, the nation needs to maintain a strategic edge over our adversaries and we need people like you to create that edge.

With ever-accelerating technological advances and growing system complexity, NSA needs professionals with a strong systems engineering background to build, integrate, and optimize complex systems and services. To meet these demands, the NSA hires and develops talented and highly motivated junior and senior systems engineers, electrical engineers, computer scientists, computer engineers, and other related professionals.

NSA requires world-class technical professionals to solve challenging systems engineering problems with unprecedented speed and scale. We need STEM professionals to serve as systems engineers to guide, support or participate in systems development programs and implement systems engineering best practices across the NSA enterprise.

NSA hires recent college graduates and junior systems engineers to support a technical mission office or one of two Development Programs: the Systems Engineer Development Program (SEDP) or the Information Technology Development Program (ITDP).

- The SEDP prepares recent college graduates and junior level technical staff for a career in systems engineering at NSA. During the three-year program, participants will rotate assignments, complete training that covers the full breadth of systems engineering disciplines, and earn Department of Defense (DoD) Defense Acquisition Workforce Improvement Act (DAWIA) certification and other important credentials.

- The ITDP provides entry-level information technology specialists (individuals with degrees in computer science, information systems, information technology, and related degrees and experience) with a three-year, full-time program to learn and contribute across the NSA mission, including systems engineering/security engineering, software engineering, software project management, system architecture, and database design.

Seasoned professionals provide systems engineering leadership to the Agency's largest and most challenging technical programs to ensure program success. In collaborative teams, these seasoned professionals:

- solve technical problems efficiently
- identify and manage program risks
- provide a structured and analytical framework for decision management
- implement program configuration management
- define and manage program requirements
- define, manage, and sustain program scope
- enforce interoperability standards
- identify and manage program dependencies
- support program lifecycle management
- define and manage architecture
- define, manage, and perform testing and evaluation.

This position has a Cyberspace Workforce Improvement Program (CWIP) requirement. Candidates accepted to fill this position will be required to obtain a DoD 8570.01-M approved certification within six (6) months of assignment. Interested parties currently pursuing certification are also encouraged to apply. Additional requirements may be placed against the selectee, based on requirements defined within DoD 8140.01 and DoD 8570.01-M 'Information Assurance Workforce Improvement Program.