Lead Security Specialist
What you'd do
The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) is ranked within the top 5 mid-size agencies as a "Best Places to Work" in the Federal government! This Lead Security Specialist position is located in the Office of the Executive Director. For more information visit: Office of the Executive Director (OED) | Federal Energy Regulatory Commission
Major duties
As a Lead Security Specialist some of your typical work assignments include: Demonstrating mastery in planning, integrating, and overseeing complex, multi-disciplinary security programs-including protecting NSI, COMSEC accountability, OPSEC governance, Insider Threat mitigation, and SCIF accreditation. Applying expert knowledge of Executive Orders, Intelligence Community directives, DOE/IN requirements, and national security regulations to develop, interpret, and implement agency-level security policies. Exercising full technical independence in directing security program objectives, resolving interagency jurisdictional gaps, and ensuring the reliability, compliance, and operational readiness of secure facilities, systems, and classified processes. Expertly interpret, reconcile, and apply a wide range of evolving, and often conflicting, national-level security directives to agency operations. Develop new policies, SOPs, and operational protocols where precedent is lacking, ensuring Commission programs comply with ODNI, DOE, DHS, NSA, DoD, and Intelligence Community standards. Provide authoritative guidance on regulatory requirements, derivative classification, SCIF lifecycle management, and COMSEC/SCI program compliance, influencing policy decisions across internal and external stakeholders. Conduct complex threat, vulnerability, and risk assessments across multiple security disciplines, identifying exposures impacting classified operations, personnel security, and sensitive information systems. Develop and implement innovative countermeasures, integrate behavioral and technical indicators for Insider Threat detection, and lead security inspections, investigations, and corrective actions. Oversee the evaluation of security incidents, insider-risk events, COMSEC anomalies, and OPSEC vulnerabilities, ensuring mitigation strategies strengthen agency-wide security posture and continuity of operations. Lead collaboration and negotiation with senior officials, interagency partners (e.g., DOE-IN, ODNI, DHS, CIA), contractors, and technical specialists to resolve complex security, compliance, and operational issues. Coordinate maintenance and service delivery for secure IT systems with multiple external providers, ensuring system uptime despite ambiguous or overlapping responsibilities. Influence decision-making in high-stakes environments by articulating security requirements, resolving disputes, guiding personnel on clearance matters, and representing the agency in interagency councils and working groups.
What you need to qualify
You must meet the qualification (experience and/or education) requirements by the closing date of this announcement. To view the eligibility and qualification requirements of a Lead Security Specialist, GS-0080, please visit: Security Specialist, 0080 | Federal Energy Regulatory Commission You must have one full year of specialized experience at or equivalent to the GS-13 level. Specialized experience is defined as: Experience in managing Sensitive Compartmented Information (SCI) programs and Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility (SCIF) accreditation; serving as a Communications Security Custodian (COMSEC) in compliance with NSA/DoD requirements; leading Operational Security (OPSEC) and Insider Threat programs; coordinating with multi agency partners; and implementing Intelligence Community (IC) directives and federal security policies. Experience refers to paid and unpaid experience, including volunteer work done through National Service programs (e.g., Peace Corps, AmeriCorps) and other organizations (e.g., professional; philanthropic; religious; spiritual; community, student, social). Volunteer work helps build critical competencies, knowledge, and skills, and can provide valuable training and experience that translates directly to paid employment. You will receive credit for all qualifying experience, including any volunteer experience. Please do not cut and paste the "Duties" section, specialized experience statement, or occupational assessment questionnaire from this announcement into your resume, as this will not be considered a demonstration of your qualifications for this position.
Before you apply
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