Engineering and Physical Sciences Researcher - Experienced to Expert Level (MD)

Do you want to work on the cryptography that protects our nation's most sensitive systems and see it fielded in the real world? We're looking for engineers who can turn cutting-edge cryptographic research into working, deployable capabilities.

Within NSA's Research Directorate, the Cryptography for Cybersecurity organization researches and designs secure cryptographic algorithms and drives the integration of modern cryptographic capabilities into U.S. National Security Systems. Our multi-disciplinary team of mathematicians, computer scientists, and engineers designs new public-key and symmetric cryptography for a wide range of mission customers, spanning space and satellite systems, special operations, tactical communications, and low size, weight, and power (SWaP) environments. A significant portion of our current work is focused on the design, evaluation, and transition of post-quantum cryptography, to secure National Security Systems against the threat of quantum computers.

We are seeking an Engineering and Physical Sciences Researcher to work at the intersection of cryptographic design and real-world application. In this role, you will serve as the bridge between mission customers and our research team. You will capture operational requirements and system constraints from customer organizations and bring them back to the mathematicians, engineers, and computer scientists who develop cryptography for specialized target environments. These environments frequently present challenges such as low-bandwidth or error-prone channels, tight protocol and interface constraints, and demanding performance targets ranging from high-speed networking to tactical edge devices. You will prototype and implement candidate algorithms in hardware and software, evaluate them on representative systems, and estimate their performance in the customer's operational environment. You will ensure the secure algorithms that are developed can be translated into secure implementations, covering topics such as resilience to implementation mistakes and side-channel attacks.

A successful candidate will possess a strong understanding of, and experience in, at least three of the following:
- Hardware design and implementation targeting FPGAs (VHDL/Verilog, vendor toolchains); ASIC design experience a plus
- Software development in C, Rust, and/or Python for implementation, testing, and tooling
- Embedded systems design, including operating systems, real-time constraints, and resource-constrained platforms
- Applied cryptography and cryptographic engineering (public-key and/or symmetric algorithms, modes, and protocols)
- Performance analysis, modeling, benchmarking, and optimization of algorithms in hardware and/or embedded software
- Communications and networking concepts, including error-prone/low-bandwidth links, framing, and protocol design

Responsibilities for the Engineering and Physical Sciences Researcher position include, but are not limited to:
- Engaging with customer organizations to elicit requirements, characterize the target system and operating environment, and communicate constraints back to the cryptographic design team
- Collaborating with mathematicians, computer scientists, and engineers to develop and refine both symmetric and public-key cryptographic algorithms and protocols for constrained, noisy, low-bandwidth, and high-performance environments
- Designing, implementing, and testing candidate symmetric and public-key algorithms in hardware (primarily FPGA, occasionally ASIC) and embedded software to evaluate correctness, performance, and resource utilization
- Developing reference and optimized implementations, test vectors, and test harnesses to validate algorithm and protocol behavior
- Estimating and modeling algorithm performance (throughput, latency, memory, power, area) in customer environments, and presenting trade studies to inform design decisions
- Integrating cryptographic components into protocols and embedded systems, and assessing interface, framing, and error-handling impacts on the overall design
- Contributing to the evaluation and transition of post-quantum cryptographic algorithms for National Security Systems
- Staying abreast of current research in cryptographic engineering and implementation, and incorporating state-of-the-art techniques into designs and evaluations
- Performing side-channel analysis of candidate implementations, including timing and power measurements, and applying countermeasures to produce side-channel-resistant designs

Conditions of employment

• All applicants and employees are subject to random drug testing in accordance with Executive Order 12564.

Qualifications

The qualifications listed are the minimum acceptable to be considered for the position.

Relevant experience must be in one or more of the following: performing engineering or physical sciences work, or conducting academic or independent research in a technical field (for example, mathematics, engineering, cognitive sciences and physical sciences).

SENIOR
Entry is with a Bachelor's degree plus 7 years of relevant experience, or a Master's degree plus 5 years of relevant experience, or a Doctoral degree plus 3 years of relevant experience.

EXPERT
Entry is with a Bachelor's degree plus 10 years of relevant experience, or a Master's degree plus 8 years of relevant experience, or a Doctoral degree plus 6 years of relevant experience.

How you will be evaluated

You will be evaluated for this job based on how well you meet the qualifications above.

- Engage with internal stakeholders, including partner and customer organizations, and individual employees.
- Develop functional, process, operational, or user requirements.
- Perform high-level design, specifying system and component performance and interface requirements.
- Translate conceptual designs into technical specifications.
- Create computer algorithms, data models, and protocols.
- Evaluate technical proposals.
- Use modeling or simulation to evaluate designs.
- Characterize systems performance properties, capabilities, and vulnerabilities.
- Optimize system performance through repeated adjustment, testing, and re-adjustment.
- Evaluate research for practical application.
- Research emerging technologies for application(s) within the Agency.
- Review scientific or technical literature to support research efforts.

The National Security Agency (NSA) is part of the DoD Intelligence Community Defense Civilian Intelligence Personnel System (DCIPS). All positions in the NSA are in the Excepted Services under 10 United States Codes (USC) 1601 appointment authority. DoD Components with DCIPS positions apply Veterans' Preference to eligible candidates as defined by Section 2108 of Title 5 USC, in accordance with the procedures provided in DoD Instruction 1400.25, Volume 2005, DCIPS Employment and Placement. If you are a veteran claiming veterans' preference, as defined by Section 2108 of Title 5 U.S.C., you may be asked to submit documents verifying your eligibility.

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