Job Description & Details
This is a heavy-duty security engineering role embedded directly within the Maryland Department of State Police environment, where you will triage and investigate live threats across critical infrastructure ranging from body-worn cameras to core firewalls. It is a contingent position tied to a statewide public safety contract, meaning you need to be comfortable with a rigorous background check process including Livescan fingerprinting before stepping on site. If you enjoy blending defensive log monitoring with active incident triage in a high-stakes government sector, this is a solid long-term gig.
What You'll Actually Be Doing
Your day-to-day will be split between hunting threats across massive telemetry datasets and assisting internal IT teams with critical hardening tasks. You'll spend hours pouring over SolarWinds SEM and CrowdStrike alerts, correlating log data to figure out if an anomalous event is a false positive or a legitimate intrusion attempt on public safety systems. When you aren't hunting adversaries, you'll be partnering with system admins to coordinate server and firewall patches, run vulnerability assessments using Nessus, and ensure multi-level security requirements are tightly enforced across Windows and Linux environments.
The Core Tech Stack
You need to know your way around CrowdStrike Falcon, Tenable Security Center, Nessus, and SolarWinds SEM like the back of your hand, because these tools form the core of your visibility stack. A strong foundation in Windows Server, Windows Workstations, Linux, and Google Workspace administration is non-negotiable since you'll be evaluating security posture across all of them. The team values someone who understands how to map out secure remote access solutions, VPNs, and intrusion detection mechanisms without breaking operational workflows for law enforcement personnel.
Interview Expectations
Expect the hiring panel to test your practical incident response methodology by asking how you would isolate a compromised mobile computer or server on a live network without disrupting critical public safety operations. They want to hear about your systematic approach to evidence collection, log correlation, and determining the true scope of a breach. You should also be ready to explain a time you managed vulnerability remediation across a complex environment under tight operational constraints, highlighting how you balanced risk mitigation with system uptime.
Application Advice
To get past the ATS, make sure your resume explicitly mirrors the language from the job description by highlighting your exact years of experience in security engineering, log analysis, and incident investigation. Don't just list tools like CrowdStrike and Nessus; briefly mention specific instances where you used them to scope an incident or drive down a vulnerability backlog. Emphasize any past public sector, law enforcement, or defense contracting experience you have, as familiarity with government compliance and background check requirements will give you a major edge.