Cyberspace Concept Developer and Validator

McBride has an exciting opportunity to support Allied Command Transformation (ACT) which is NATO’s leading agent for change: driving, facilitating, and advocating the continuous improvement of Alliance capabilities to maintain and enhance the military relevance and effectiveness of the Alliance. The main objectives of ACT are: providing appropriate support to NATO missions and operations; leading NATO military transformation; improving relationships, interaction and practical cooperation with partners, nations and international organizations. ACT therefore leads Alliance concept development, capability development, training and lessons learned initiatives and provides unfettered military support to policy development within NATO.

You will be responsible for the following:

• Based on NATO operational needs, literature review, high-level direction and guidance (notably stemming from ACT’s Warfare Development Agenda), and guidance from ACT Cyberspace Technical Director, identify cyberspace operation capability concepts to be developed. [For information: Building on previous efforts on Cyberspace Situational Awareness ( CySA ), follow-on capability concepts are expected to be developed in the area of decision-support and Cyberspace Command and Control (CyC2), to name a few.]
  
• Develop the identified cyberspace operation capability concepts, by conducting all the necessary activities, including, but not limited to, initial research, input collection, concept aim/scope definition, concept drafting, submission, and approval.
  
• Build and maintain Communities of Interest (NATO organizations, Nations, Industry, Academia) dedicated to the development and implementation of cyberspace operation concepts, in close coordination with the Technical Director and ACT Cyberspace Federation & Partnership SME.
  
• Contribute to experimentation and validation efforts related to the cyberspace operation concepts (feasibility analysis, experiment design and preparation, assessment, etc.), under the guidance of the Technical Director.
  
• Develop (as lead or contributor) relevant engineering products/artifacts to support cyberspace capability development and implementation. This includes capability requirements identification and definition across all DOTMLPFI aspects, Analyses of Alternatives, architecture development, Information Exchange Requirements definition, operational evaluation/validation, and interoperability assessment.
  
• Support and contribute to other warfare development activities related to concept implementation and engineering (feasibility studies, foresight analysis, technical and operational analysis, experimentation campaigns, etc.).
  
• Inform, organize and participate in meetings, workshops, conferences and other events, and travel to attend those, as needed, generally within NATO’s boundaries for up to 20 days per year.
  
• Perform additional tasks, related to the contract, as required by the COTR.
  

Requirements

Mandatory Qualifications:  

• Proven recent (at least three within the last five years) post-degree hands-on experience in authoring cyberspace concepts, specifications, architectures, functional analysis, designs, preferably in the area of military information and cyber systems. Experience at the level of management, overseeing, participating or supporting shall not be accounted for.
  
• Post-degree education in CIS security and cyber defense disciplines, as Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP), GIAC Security Expert or ISACA Certified Information Security Manager (CISM).
  
• Demonstrated experience in planning, coordinating and executing workshops for various stakeholders including governmental agencies, academia and industry. 
  
• Post-degree hands-on experience in architecture drafting, preferably using NATO Architectural Framework (NAF) or similar standard (e.g. TOGAF).
  

Education and Clearance:

• Active NATO or National SECRET (or higher) security clearance.
  
• Master’s degree in engineering, systems engineering or computer science. A bachelor’s degree and 5 years of recent experience in system engineering, capability concept development and implementation in a military context will be considered in lieu of a master’s degree. 
  

Note: Hands-on experience in system engineering activities, including definition, implementation and engineering of operational/military concepts throughout the complete capability life cycle, is essential. In general, management experience, team leading, participation and/or contribution to the above activities will not suffice to qualify.