Senior OT Cybersecurity / ICS Security Architect (Part-Time)

ABOUT THE ROLE

Peraton Labs is hiring a Senior OT Cybersecurity / ICS Security Architect — a part-time, midcareer-to-senior systems architect role bridging operational technology (OT), industrial control systems (ICS), and enterprise IT cybersecurity — to join our Strategic Innovation Group in support of a federal customer's cybersecurity and OT modernization program for critical infrastructure.

This is a part-time engagement (approximately 20 hours per week, schedule flexible around program milestones) suited to an experienced professional seeking a focused, high-impact engagement without a full-time commitment.

As a Senior OT Cybersecurity / ICS Security Architect on our team, you will contribute to the requirements and solutions-analysis effort for one or more parallel workstreams of the customer's modernization program, spanning core capability areas such as access control, security monitoring, and asset and vulnerability management. You will work with the customer's engineering, operations, cybersecurity, and test-and-evaluation stakeholders, alongside a Peraton Labs delivery team of engineers and technical writers. The goal is to define requirements, survey the market, evaluate candidate products, and deliver defensible recommendations that guide the customer's procurement decisions.

WHAT YOU WILL DO

• Contribute to end-to-end solutions analysis for one or more workstreams: elicit and validate requirements, and help produce System Requirements Specifications (SRS) with traceability to NERC CIP, FISMA, and CISA Zero Trust Architecture.
• Support market research to identify candidate commercial products across identity and access controls, network monitoring and threat visibility, and inventory / configuration / vulnerability management.
• Help draft Requests for Information (RFIs), review vendor responses, and participate in technical engagement with bidders under federal market-research guardrails.
• Assess vendor responses and product capabilities against requirements; contribute to comparison reports and down-select recommendations.
• Contribute to lab test environment design and test plans; observe or participate in hands-on product demonstrations and evaluation at customer and Peraton Labs facilities.
• Co-author Alternative Solutions Analysis (ASA) documents and support steering-committee and executive briefings.
• Bring lived-experience perspective from a federal hydropower-marketing / multi-regional transmission operator to workshops that align requirements across operational technology (SCADA, EMS, RTUs, protective relays, industrial protocols) and enterprise IT cybersecurity domains.

REQUIRED QUALIFICATIONS

• U.S. Citizenship and the ability to obtain and maintain a Public Trust determination and PIV credential for unescorted access to the customer facility.
• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Computer or Electrical Engineering, Cybersecurity, or a related technical discipline, and 8+ years of progressive systems architecture, cyber engineering, or grid operations engineering experience; in lieu of a degree, 12 years of relevant experience will be considered.
• Demonstrated hands-on experience across both operational technology (OT / ICS) and enterprise information technology (IT) security environments.
• Direct hands-on experience delivering OT / ICS cybersecurity work inside a bulk-electric-system operating environment, as a full-time technical contributor accountable for production operations — not solely as an external consultant.
• Hands-on experience applying NERC CIP standards (CIP-002 through CIP-014) inside a bulk-electric-system operating environment.
• Strong technical writing and stakeholder-communication skills.
• Availability for approximately 20 hours per week, with reasonable flexibility around program milestones (requirements workshops, vendor demonstrations, lab test windows).
• Ability to travel domestically up to 25%, including routine trips to the Pacific Northwest.

DESIRED QUALIFICATIONS

• Prior work supporting a federal or federal-adjacent hydropower-marketing or multi-regional transmission operator (as an employee, contractor, or seconded engineer).
• Working familiarity with FISMA controls and CISA Zero Trust Architecture mappings.
• Experience with grid-operations technology at scale: SCADA / EMS lifecycle, sensor networks and PMU / WAMS deployments, situational-awareness platforms, and substation-automation environments.
• Balancing Authority operations experience, including participation in a Western energy market (e.g., CAISO EIM or SPP WEIS / RTO West), and familiarity with reliability-coordination interactions under WECC and/or MRO oversight.
• Familiarity with DOE CESER programs and national-lab collaborations (PNNL, INL, NREL, SNL), including CyTRICS and CyOTE.
• Prior involvement in stakeholder engagement with preference customers, tribal governments, and public-power / cooperative utility partners.
• Depth in one or more component domains: identity and access management; network detection and monitoring; packet capture and data diodes; cyber-asset and configuration management; or vulnerability and patch management for embedded devices.
• Experience with privileged access management (PAM) solutions.
• Experience with log and traffic monitoring systems supporting power protection, SCADA, and telecommunications environments.
• Experience with configuration management systems for power protection, SCADA, and telecommunications environments.
• Experience authoring alternatives analyses under a formal systems-lifecycle methodology (utility SLC, DoDAF, NIST RMF, or comparable).
• Industry certifications such as GICSP, CISSP, GRID, CISA, or NERC-CIP-focused credentials.
• Experience presenting to federal or utility executive steering committees.
• Comfort operating under federal market-research guardrails (open information exchange with vendors; no NDAs; no procurement commitments).

WORKING CONDITIONS

• Location / posture: Remote (U.S.-based); fully remote day-to-day.
• Schedule: Part-time, approximately 20 hours per week, with flexibility around program milestones. Standard business hours preferred; occasional evening or weekend availability during lab test windows or scheduled vendor demonstrations.
• Travel: Up to 25% domestic; routine trips to the Pacific Northwest; periodic trips to the Peraton Labs ICS Lab in New Jersey.
• Customer interaction: Frequent during active workshops and evaluations — requirements sessions, vendor engagements, steering-committee briefings. Requires professionalism, strong communication, and resilience in multi-stakeholder consensus-building.
• Onboarding: Background check, PIV credential, and customer-required training must be completed prior to unescorted facility access.