Federal Senior Cloud Security Engineer

About the role

Get to Know Us

Horizon3 http://Horizon3.ai is a fast-growing, remote cybersecurity company dedicated to the mission of enabling organizations to proactively find and fix and verify exploitable attack vectors before criminals exploit them. Our flagship product, the NodeZeroTM platform, delivers production-safe autonomous pentests and other key assessment operations that scale across the largest internal, external, cloud, and hybrid cloud environments. NodeZero has been adopted by organizations of all sizes, from small educational institutions to government agencies and Global 100 enterprises. It is used by ITOps/SecOps teams, consulting pentesters, and MSSPs and MSPs.

We are a fusion of former U.S. Special Operations cyber operators, startup engineers, and formerly frustrated cybersecurity practitioners. We're committed to helping solve our common security problems: ineffective security tools, false positives resulting in alert fatigue, blind spots, "checkbox” security culture, cybersecurity skills shortage, and the long lead time and expense of hiring outside consultants. Collectively, we are a team of learn it alls, committed to a culture of respect, collaboration, ownership, and results.

About the Role

The Sr. Cloud Security Engineer, Federal performs the tasks necessary to analyze, design, configure, implement, and validate security solutions for H3’s AWS GovCloud infrastructure. This role serves as a technical leader and "self-starter," working closely with the Director of Federal Operations, Security Operations Manager, and engineering teams to ensure a secure and compliant cloud architecture. Tasks will consist of developing security guardrails, automating threat detection, and managing the end-to-end security lifecycle within the CI/CD pipeline. This position prioritizes Federal AWS environments and compliance (FedRAMP, IL-4/5) while providing subject matter expertise and support for commercial cloud security as the Federal Team grows.

Essential Functions

- Cloud Security Engineering: Design and implement robust security controls across AWS environments, including AWS IAM, SCPs, VPC security, S3 bucket policies, and key management.

- Infrastructure as Code (IaC): Utilize Terraform to deploy and manage security configurations, ensuring "Security as Code" is integrated into all cloud deployments.

- DevSecOps Integration: Implement and maintain GitLab CI/CD pipelines for automated security testing and scanning of AWS resources.

- Posture Management & Monitoring: Continuously monitor and improve cloud security posture by managing and tuning services such as GuardDuty, Security Hub, AWS WAF, and CloudTrail.

- Identity & Access Management: Define and enforce IAM best practices, including least privilege, federated identity, RBAC, and automated remediation of deficiencies.

- Threat Modeling & Assessment: Conduct architecture reviews and risk assessments for new cloud features to identify and mitigate vulnerabilities before deployment.

- Incident Response & Analysis: Investigate suspected attacks and lead security incident management, providing post-mortem analysis and developing long-term preventive measures.

- Compliance & Standards: Develop and maintain security policies and procedures to ensure compliance with FedRAMP and DoD IL-4/5.

- Reporting & Metrics: Develop creative reporting mechanisms and metrics to communicate cloud risk and security themes to business owners and leadership.

Competencies

- AWS Expertise: Deep knowledge of AWS services and security architecture.

- Automation Proficiency: In-depth knowledge of Terraform and GitLab CI/CD strategies.

- Framework Fluency: Familiarity with cybersecurity frameworks such as NIST, CIS, and MITRE ATT&CK.

- Analytical Problem Solving: Excellent skills in log processing, event analysis, and incident management.

- Communication: Excellent verbal and written skills, with the ability to explain complex technical concepts to non-technical stakeholders.

- Integrity & Ownership: Demonstrated commitment to process improvement, technical integrity, and a "learn-it-all" attitude.

Required Education/Experience

- Education: Bachelor's degree in Computer Science or Cybersecurity; Military Service Equivalent.

- Experience: Minimum five (5) years of experience in securing AWS environments; 5+ years of general cybersecurity experience.

- Certifications: AWS Certified Security - Specialty preferred; CISSP or relevant security certifications preferred.

- Clearance/Auth: Must be authorized to work in the U.S. and pass a criminal background check.

- U.S. Government Security Clearance is a plus.

Travel & Environment

- Location: Fully remote.

- Travel: Up to 5% for company-approved events or summits.

Other Duties

Please note this job description is not designed to cover or contain a comprehensive listing of activities. Duties, responsibilities, and activities may change at any time.