About this opportunity
Concepts Beyond lists this Cybersecurity Software Engineer / Technical Lead (PKI / PQC) opportunity in washington, District of Columbia. Review the employer’s description below for duties, qualifications and application requirements.
Job description
About the Role
Secure the Future of Aviation! Concepts Beyond is seeking a hands-on cybersecurity engineer to serve as our cybersecurity technical lead for the National Airspace System (NAS), focused on Public Key Infrastructure (PKI), certificate lifecycle management, and post-quantum cryptography (PQC). This is a high-ownership, individual-contributor role, and it is not a compliance role: you will research emerging technologies, come up with new approaches, and personally build the software that puts them into operation, working as a peer with technical customers to shape strategy rather than simply receive direction. We welcome candidates from a range of backgrounds, including recent Ph.D. graduates, postdoctoral researchers, government or military technologists moving into industry, and experienced PKI engineers: sharp, eager, fast-learning technologists ready to grow into a highly visible, public-facing technical leadership role.
All potential applicants are encouraged to scroll through and read the complete job description before applying.
Concepts Beyond provides Software Engineering, Systems Engineering, and Aviation expertise to develop advanced Air Traffic Management concepts; develops cybersecurity solutions in PKI, post-quantum computing, zero trust & confidential computing; Develops AI/ML and cloud computing tools for Aviation Safety & Data Analytics.
What You'll Do
Research & Innovation
Investigate emerging technologies such as PQC, crypto-agility, zero trust, and confidential computing, and turn promising ideas into prototypes and new capabilities.
Evaluate post-quantum and hybrid cryptography against real aviation system constraints, such as performance, certificate size, and legacy or embedded systems, and design practical migration paths toward crypto-agility.
Explore new approaches to hard certificate lifecycle problems, such as revocation, automation, and trust management at scale, and to protecting keys with confidential computing and HSMs.
Engineering & Software Development
Design, build, and automate PKI systems and certificate authority platforms such as EJBCA for certificate issuance, validation, and lifecycle management.
Prototype post-quantum and hybrid approaches aligned with the new NIST standards (ML-KEM, ML-DSA, SLH-DSA).
Develop Java applications, tools, and user interfaces backed by relational databases (MariaDB/Galera) and secured on AWS and Azure.
Thought Leadership & Innovation
Analyze state-of-the-art technologies, drive cutting-edge Cybersecurity strategies and architectures, identify emerging trends, gaps, and innovation opportunities.
Promote thought leadership through publications, conference presentations, standards and working groups, and industry collaboration.
Contribute ideas that support growth and new business opportunities.
What You Bring
Ph.D., Master's, or Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Electrical/Computer Engineering, Mathematics, or a related field. Recent Ph.D. graduates and postdoctoral researchers in applied cryptography, PKI, or network/systems security are strongly encouraged to apply; otherwise, 3+ years (Master's) or 5+ years (Bachelor's) of relevant experience.
Strong software development skills: Java preferred, or the ability to become productive in Java quickly.
Solid grounding in cryptography and PKI fundamentals (X.509 certificates, certificate authorities, key management, TLS).
A creative, research-minded approach: able to understand a problem deeply, propose original ideas, and turn them into working software.
Fast learner with strong communication skills, able to explain complex technical work clearly to both technical and non-technical audiences, and eager to grow into public speaking and industry engagement.
Nice to Have
EJBCA or other certificate authority platforms.
Post-quantum cryptography (ML-KEM, ML-DSA, SLH-DSA), hybrid certificates, or libraries such as Open Quantum Safe or Bouncy Castle.
Azure confidential computing, trusted execution environments (Intel SGX/TDX, AMD SEV-SNP), or HSMs.
MariaDB with Galera clustering; AWS (including Secrets Manager) and Azure. xzgxqkn
Publications, conference talks, or open-source contributions in security or cryptography.
Experience with government clients and federal frameworks such as NIST SP 800-53.
Worksite address
washington, DC, 20011, US
Who can apply
Review the original listing for work authorization, qualifications and employer requirements.