Facility Security Officer

Location: On-site in Washington, D.C.; occasional travel to other Cognition offices and customer sites.

Company

Cognition develops Devin, an AI software engineer, and supports federal customers including NASA JPL, the Social Security Administration, and the Department of War.

What you will do

• Serve as the appointed Facility Security Officer under 32 CFR Part 117 and establish, maintain, and administer Cognition's facility clearance with DCSA.
• Manage the full personnel security clearance lifecycle in DISS/NBIS, including investigations, adjudications, reinvestigations, continuous vetting, indoctrinations, and debriefings.
• Establish and operate the insider threat program as ITPSO, including training, monitoring, and reporting.
• Prepare for DCSA vulnerability assessments and annual self-inspections, remediate findings, and maintain continuous review readiness.
• Deliver security education and manage classified information, visits, courier procedures, closed-area accreditation, security documentation, and required reporting.
• Partner with federal sales, engineering, legal, IT, and security engineering on contract execution, clearance forecasting, classified and CUI controls, FedRAMP High, and DoD IL4/IL5/IL6 environments.

Requirements

• Active U.S. Government security clearance at TS/SCI.
• 5+ years of industrial security experience under the NISP, including 2+ years as an appointed FSO or Assistant FSO at a cleared defense contractor or technology company.
• FSO Program Management for Possessing Facilities certification, or Non-Possessing certification with willingness to complete the Possessing curriculum, plus current ITPSO training.
• Hands-on proficiency with DISS, NISS, NBIS/eQIP, and SF-86 processing.
• Working knowledge of 32 CFR Part 117/NISPOM, SEAD 4 personnel security adjudicative guidelines, SEAD 3 continuous vetting reporting, and DD Form 254 administration.
• Experience preparing for and passing DCSA security reviews, including self-inspection programs and remediation.
• Excellent written communication for authoring security procedures and briefings.
• Ability to work on-site in Washington, D.C. and travel occasionally to other Cognition offices and customer sites.

Nice to have

• Experience standing up an FCL or security program at a startup or company new to the federal market.
• ISP certification, CDSE FSO curriculum completion, or experience with SCI/SAP program security as CSSO or CPSO.
• Experience supporting software or cloud companies pursuing FedRAMP, IL5/IL6, or classified cloud deployments.
• Experience in high-intensity environments with sustained effort and a high tolerance for ambiguity.

Culture & Benefits

• Ownership and responsibility for building the security program from zero.
• Enablement-focused approach to finding compliant paths and communicating requirements clearly.
• Work across multiple federal programs, customers, facilities, and classification levels.
• Equal opportunity workplace with reasonable accommodations available throughout the hiring process.