Principal Security Researcher

Clarity Innovations
Discipline: Reverse Engineering / Vulnerability Research
Location: Hybrid
Clearance: TS/SCI

Company Overview

Clarity Innovations equips customers with the technology, expertise, and support needed to conduct successful cyber operations. We bring together talented engineers, researchers, and operators to solve some of the U.S. Government’s most challenging technical problems. Our teams combine technical excellence, creativity, and collaboration to deliver capabilities that advance customer missions.

Role

Clarity Innovations is seeking a Principal Security Researcher to lead complex vulnerability research and reverse engineering efforts. In this role, you will investigate how systems function, identify security weaknesses, and develop capabilities that demonstrate their impact within customer-authorized research activities.

You will provide technical leadership throughout the research lifecycle-from initial exploration and research planning through vulnerability discovery, exploitation, documentation, and delivery. Working alongside experienced security researchers, you will apply advanced static and dynamic analysis techniques across diverse architectures and operating environments.

The ideal candidate brings deep technical expertise, sound research judgment, the ability to guide teams through ambiguous problems, and troubleshoot basic networking issues. Success requires clear communication with technical and non-technical stakeholders, a collaborative approach, and a commitment to developing fellow researchers.

Responsibilities

• Lead vulnerability research and reverse engineering efforts aligned with customer objectives.
• Define research strategies, assess technical feasibility, and guide teams through project planning, kickoff, execution, and delivery.
• Perform advanced static and dynamic analysis using disassemblers, debuggers, emulators, tracers, and fuzzers.
• Identify vulnerabilities, conduct root-cause analysis, and document reproducible findings.
• Develop reliable proof-of-concept exploits and operational exploit capabilities for authorized customer requirements.
• Evaluate and bypass modern exploit mitigations and security mechanisms as part of authorized research.
• Build tooling, automation, and research infrastructure that improve vulnerability discovery, analysis, and reproducibility.
• Communicate research progress, technical risks, findings, and recommendations to technical and non-technical stakeholders.
• Share research findings internally and externally when authorized and appropriate.
• Mentor security researchers, review technical work, and promote rigorous research and documentation practices.
• Lead small to medium-sized research teams, maintaining technical quality and alignment with project objectives.

Minimum Qualifications

• Ability to obtain and maintain a TS/SCI security clearance; U.S. citizenship is required.
• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Engineering, Computer Science, Software Engineering, or a related technical discipline. Four years of hands-on experience in software engineering or a comparable full-time technical role may substitute for the degree.
• Demonstrated experience conducting vulnerability research and reverse engineering, including independently driving complex technical investigations.
• Experience providing technical leadership and mentoring engineers or security researchers.
• Experience using Ghidra, Binary Ninja, IDA, or comparable reverse engineering and disassembly tools.
• Strong knowledge of Linux internals and fundamentals, including sockets, file descriptors, networking, iptables, file systems, and kernel behavior.
• Ability to read and write C and work with assembly languages for architectures such as ARM, MIPS, and x86-64.
• Strong programming fundamentals, including networking, data structures, and data models.
• Understanding of exploitation techniques, including arbitrary read/write primitives, shellcode development, return-oriented programming, and jump-oriented programming.
• Experience participating in capture-the-flag competitions, hackathons, or other cybersecurity competitions.
• Ability to clearly communicate complex technical concepts and produce actionable research documentation.

Preferred Qualifications

• Active Top Secret security clearance.
• Experience reverse engineering operating systems and kernels.
• Experience with fuzzing tools such as AFL++ or libFuzzer.
• Knowledge of security controls and exploit mitigations, including SELinux, seccomp, ASLR, and control-flow integrity.
• Advanced dynamic analysis experience using GDB, gdbserver, or comparable tools.
• Familiarity with processor toolchains and the Android Native Development Kit.
• Experience using QEMU or Unicorn to emulate code in non-native environments.
• Demonstrated experience discovering previously unknown vulnerabilities, including zero-days.

Equal Opportunity Employer

Clarity Innovations is an equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability, or veteran status.

Salary Range: $106,000 - $277,000