Clarification from the agency

This vacancy announcement is open to current employees of the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts.

The Supervisory Information Technology Specialist (Security) serves as the Security Operations Support Branch Chief within the Security Operations Support Branch (SOSB). The incumbent is responsible for leading detection engineering, threat hunting, and threat intelligence teams to identify cybersecurity threats that impact the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of judicial data.

The position reports to the SOD Division Chief and is critical to protecting the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of Judiciary information systems.

Duties include, but are not limited to:

• Providing leadership, direction, and oversight for the Security Operations Support Branch, which delivers enterprise detection engineering, threat hunting, and threat intelligence capabilities in support of continuous cybersecurity operations.
• Overseeing the development, testing, deployment, and lifecycle management of detection logic used to identify malicious activity across the Judiciary's information technology environment.
• Leading the production and operational integration of threat intelligence to inform detection engineering priorities, threat hunting activities, and risk-based decision-making.
• Directing proactive threat hunting efforts to identify emerging, novel, or evasive adversary behaviors not addressed by existing detection mechanisms.
• Establishing and maintaining detection engineering standards, methodologies, and quality assurance processes to ensure accuracy, consistency, and operational effectiveness.
• Overseeing the validation, tuning, and refinement of detections based on operational feedback, adversary emulation results, and observed threat activity.
• Ensuring the development of metrics and reporting to measure detection coverage, effectiveness, and operational maturity.
• Leading the development and maintenance of a common operational picture that identifies baseline activity and highlights meaningful deviations to support situational awareness, prioritization, and leadership decision-making.
• Providing executive summaries and briefings to senior leadership and cybersecurity stakeholders to support enterprise risk awareness, prioritization, and resource allocation.
• Coordinating with the Security Operations Center to improve alert fidelity, investigative workflows, and analytic outcomes.
• Managing branch personnel, contractor support, and resource planning to sustain required capabilities.
• Performing duties consistent with the skills, knowledge, and abilities defined in NIST Special Publication 800-181 (NICE Cybersecurity Workforce Framework) for Program Management (OG-WRL-010), Threat Analysis (PD-WRL-006), and Defensive Cybersecurity (PD-WRL-001) roles.

Conditions of employment

CONDITIONS OF EMPLOYMENT

1. All information is subject to verification. Applicants are advised that false answers or omissions of information on application materials or inability to meet the following conditions may be grounds for non-selection, withdrawal of an offer of employment, or dismissal after being employed.
2. Selection for this position is contingent upon completion of OF-306, Declaration of Federal Employment during the pre-employment process and proof of U.S. citizenship for competitive status positions or conversion to a competitive status position with the AO. If non-citizens are considered for hire into a temporary or any other position with non-competitive status or when it is confirmed by the AO Human Resources Office there are no qualified U.S. citizens for a competitive status position (unless prohibited by a law or statue), non-citizens must provide proof of authorization to work in the U.S. and proof of entitlement to receive compensation. Additional information on the employment of non-citizens can be found at USAJOBS Help Center | Employment of non-citizens/. For a list of documents that may be used to provide proof of citizenship or authorization to work in the United States, please refer to Form I-9, Employment Eligibility Verification.
3. All new AO employees will be required to complete an FBI fingerprint-based national criminal database and records check and pass a public trust suitability check.
4. New employees to the AO will be required to successfully pass the E-Verify employment verification check. To learn more about E-Verify, including your rights/responsibilities, visit https://www.e-verify.gov/.
5. All new AO employees are required to identify a financial institution for direct deposit of pay before appointment.
6. You will be required to serve a trial period if selected for a first-time appointment to the Federal government, transferring from another Federal agency, or serving as a first-time supervisor. Failure to successfully complete the trial period may result in termination of employment.
7. If appointed to a temporary position, management may have the discretion of converting the position to permanent depending upon funding and staffing allocation.

Qualifications

Applicants must have demonstrated experience as listed below. This requirement is according to the AO Classification, Compensation, and Recruitment Systems which include interpretive guidance and reference to the OPM Operating Manual for Qualification Standards for General Schedule Positions.

Specialized Experience: Applicants must have at least one full year (52 weeks) of specialized experience which is in or directly related to the line of work of this position. Specialized experience is demonstrated experience must demonstrate ALL areas defined below:

• Leading enterprise detection engineering, threat hunting, and cyber threat intelligence programs in support of continuous cybersecurity operations and organizational cyber defense objectives.
• Directing the development, implementation, and execution of proactive threat hunting strategies to identify sophisticated, emerging, or previously undetected adversary activity across enterprise environments.
• Establishing and maintaining governance, standards, methodologies, and quality assurance processes for detection engineering programs to ensure operational effectiveness, consistency, and alignment with organizational cybersecurity objectives.
• Leading the production, analysis, and operational integration of cyber threat intelligence to inform detection engineering priorities, guide threat hunting activities, and support risk-based cybersecurity and organizational decision-making.

• Offensive Security Professional (OSCP)
• GIAC Reverse Engineering Malware (GREM)
• GIAC Certified Forensic Analyst (GCFA)
• GIAC Exploit Researcher and Advanced Penetration Tester (GXPN)Offensive Security certifications relevant to malware or exploit analysis

How you will be evaluated

You will be evaluated for this job based on how well you meet the qualifications above.

We will review your resume and supporting documentation and compare this information to your responses on the occupational questionnaire to determine if you meet the minimum qualifications for this job. If you meet the minimum qualifications for this job, we will evaluate your application package, to assess the quality, depth, and complexity of your accomplishments, experience, and education as they relate to the requirements listed in this vacancy announcement.

You should be aware that your ratings are subject to evaluation and verification. If a determination is made that you have rated yourself higher than is supported by your resume and/or narrative responses, you will be assigned a rating commensurate to your described experience. Failure to submit the mandatory narrative responses will result in not receiving full consideration and/or rating credit. Deliberate attempts to falsify information may be grounds for not selecting you, withdrawing an offer of employment, or dismissal after being employed.