Security Engineer — NASA Mission Cloud

MRI Technologies has an exciting opportunity for a Security Engineer on the NASA Mission Cloud (NMC) team, supporting the Mission Enabling Services Contract (MESC). In this role, you will own the security tooling, harden the cloud infrastructure, and drive vulnerability remediation at scale across a production GCP platform running 12+ GKE clusters across ITAR, Moderate, and Low impact boundaries. You will work alongside cloud engineers, compliance specialists, and NASA stakeholders-building detection coverage, enforcing least-privilege access, and integrating security controls into the CI/CD pipelines that keep the platform moving. You should be comfortable writing code: whether it is Python automation for CVE triage, Go tooling for policy enforcement, or shell scripting for security checks in CI pipelines, this role expects you to build things, not just configure them. A typical day might begin with triaging new CVEs identified across container images or reviewing overnight alerts from the security monitoring stack. By midday you could be writing Python automation to streamline a vulnerability remediation workflow or integrating a new security check into a GitLab CI/CD pipeline. In the afternoon, you might be conducting an IAM drift analysis across cloud resources, evaluating a new supply-chain security tool like Chainguard or Sigstore, or investigating an anomaly flagged by the SIEM. The work is hands-on, engineering-first, and operating at a scale where your improvements have immediate, measurable impact on systems that carry NASA's mission workloads. What We Are Looking For Requirements: Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science, Cybersecurity, or equivalent 4 or more years of relevant security engineering experience Experience with cloud security engineering on GCP or an equivalent cloud platform (AWS or Azure) Hands-on experience with container security, Kubernetes hardening, and image vulnerability scanning Working knowledge of IAM principles and least-privilege enforcement at scale Experience with security monitoring, SIEM tools, and alert triage Familiarity with CVE management and vulnerability remediation workflows Comfortable working in Linux environments and with CLI-based tooling Working proficiency in at least one modern programming language (Python, Go, JavaScript, or Rust) sufficient to build security tooling, automation scripts, and CI/CD integrations Ability to excel in a remote work environment Preferences: Experience with Chainguard, Sigstore, or similar supply chain security tooling GCP Security Command Center, Chronicle, or Google Cloud Armor experience GitLab CI/CD pipeline security integration experience NIST SP 800-53 or FedRAMP control implementation experience Security+ or equivalent certification Prior NASA or federal government security engineering experience This position has been posted at multiple levels. Depending on your experience and business needs, we may consider candidates at any level for which the position has been advertised. Benefits and Perks We offer a comprehensive benefits package including medical, dental, vision, company-paid life and disability insurance, paid time off, and 401(k). You'll also enjoy a flexible work schedule strong career development opportunities working alongside NASA's mission teams. Proof of U.S. Citizenship is a requirement for this position. Must be able to complete a U.S. government background investigation. MRI Technologies is an Equal Opportunity Employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability, or protected veteran status. As we are a Federal Contractor, most positions require the employee to obtain and maintain a U.S. Government background investigation. MRI also completes a pre-screening background check for anyone offered employment.