Security Engineer Visa Sponsorship Jobs in Washington DC
Washington DC is a leading market for security engineer roles, driven by federal agencies, defense contractors, and cybersecurity firms concentrated across the DC metro area. Major employers including Booz Allen Hamilton, Leidos, SAIC, and Palantir regularly sponsor international engineers. The region's deep ties to government and national security make it one of the most active hiring markets for this role.
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About The Team
Enterprise Security builds and operates the security capabilities that protect USDS JV's enterprise environments and enable Cyber Defense teams to prevent, detect, investigate, and respond to threats. We bring together software engineering, security engineering, and production operations to turn security requirements into reliable, scalable services. Our work spans security telemetry and analytics, host and network defense, threat-intelligence integration, response automation, and the platforms supporting investigations. We partner with security operations, threat detection and response, infrastructure, identity, gateway, and data teams to strengthen defenses across the enterprise. Our focus is not simply deploying security tools: it is engineering an integrated defense capability with dependable coverage, actionable data, and sustainable operations.
Key Responsibilities
- Own the End-to-End Lifecycle: Direct the design, development, integration, deployment, and operation of the Cyber Defense platform portfolio. Scope includes security information and event management (SIEM), security orchestration, automation and response (SOAR), case management, threat-intelligence integrations, host and network security tooling, and supporting capabilities.
- Define an Integrated Security Platforms: Establish how telemetry, analytics, security controls, and response workflows work together. Set technical standards, resolve architectural gaps, and make build-versus-buy decisions that balance defensive effectiveness, reliability, cost, and long-term maintainability.
- Engineer Reliable Security Data and Automation: Build and improve telemetry ingestion, normalization, enrichment, and service integrations. Partner with detection engineers, threat hunters, and incident responders to translate operational needs into tested platform features and safe, auditable automation.
- Own Production Reliability and Operations: Establish service-level objectives, monitoring, capacity planning, on-call coverage, runbooks, recovery procedures, and disciplined change management. Lead restoration of owned services during production incidents and drive post-incident improvements that eliminate recurring failures and reduce operational toil.
- Continuously Improve Defensive Effectiveness: Use threat intelligence, adversary techniques, control testing, and incident findings to prioritize engineering improvements. Close persistent coverage and control gaps with durable solutions rather than repeated manual remediation.
- Orchestrate Cross-Functional Delivery: Coordinate dependencies and shared control boundaries with Cyber Defense, infrastructure, identity, gateway, privacy, and compliance partners. Establish clear service ownership and support expectations, and provide evidence of control effectiveness for the systems your team owns.
- Build a High-Performing Team. Set the Technical Vision and Roadmap
QUALIFICATIONS
Minimum Qualifications:
- Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, Information Security, or a related field, or equivalent practical experience.
- Demonstrated experience leading software or security engineering teams, including hiring, performance management, developing technical leaders, and delivering complex initiatives across multiple teams.
- A track record of defining security architecture and department-level technical plans, or plans of comparable scope, and owning the delivery and ongoing production operation of enterprise-scale security platforms.
- Strong technical depth in security data platforms or defensive tooling, with experience integrating capabilities such as SIEM, SOAR, host or network defense, threat intelligence, or investigation workflows.
- Strong software engineering judgment across distributed systems, APIs, data pipelines, secure development practices, and automated testing, with the ability to guide architecture and implementation decisions.
- Experience establishing reliable service operations, including observability, incident management, on-call practices, recovery planning, and measurable service objectives.
- Ability to translate security risks and business requirements into prioritized engineering plans, influence partners across organizational boundaries, and communicate technical trade-offs clearly.
Preferred Experience:
- Experience leading a portfolio of interconnected security services and developing technical leads or front-line engineering managers.
- Experience with high-volume security telemetry, event correlation, detection-platform enablement, automated response workflows, and investigation or case-management systems.
- Experience engineering or operating host intrusion detection, network traffic analysis, web application firewall, or data-loss-prevention capabilities.
- Experience operating security services in large-scale cloud or hybrid environments, including Oracle Cloud Infrastructure or AWS.
- Experience using adversary-informed testing, threat modeling, and incident findings to improve security architecture and validate defensive coverage.
- Experience consolidating fragmented tools, reducing operational toil, managing technology dependencies, and improving the cost and maintainability of security services.
- Experience supporting privacy-sensitive environments and maintaining auditable controls and operational evidence.
ABOUT USDS
TikTok USDS Joint Venture LLC is dedicated to the safety and security of millions of Americans who create, discover, and connect with what they love on the apps we operate. The Joint Venture has been established in compliance with the Executive Order signed by President Trump on September 25, 2025. Our foundation is a comprehensive data privacy and cybersecurity program we operate under defined safeguards to protect national security and secure U.S. user data, apps and the algorithm. We safeguard the U.S. content ecosystem, holding decision-making authority for trust and safety policies and moderation. USDS Joint Venture helps ensure Americans can continue to express their creativity, discover new hobbies and interests, and build thriving communities and businesses on a global scale.
On-site presence across teams allows the company to operate with greater speed, alignment, and agility — especially in areas like real-time decision-making, team development, and integrated execution. As such, the company is shifting from a hybrid work model to a fully in-person schedule up to 5 days a week.
WHY JOIN US
Inspiring creativity is at the core of TikTok's mission. Our innovative product is built to help people authentically express themselves, discover and connect – and our global, diverse teams make that possible. Together, we create value for our communities, inspire creativity and bring joy – a mission we work towards every day.
We strive to do great things with great people. We lead with curiosity, humility, and a desire to make impact in a rapidly growing tech company. Every challenge is an opportunity to learn and innovate as one team. We're resilient and embrace challenges as they come. By constantly iterating and fostering an "Always Day 1" mindset, we achieve meaningful breakthroughs for ourselves, our company, and our users. When we create and grow together, the possibilities are limitless. Join us.
DIVERSITY & INCLUSION
TikTok is committed to creating an inclusive space where employees are valued for their skills, experiences, and unique perspectives. Our platform connects people from across the globe and so does our workplace. At TikTok, our mission is to inspire creativity and bring joy. To achieve that goal, we are committed to celebrating our diverse voices and to creating an environment that reflects the many communities we reach. We are passionate about this and hope you are too.
USDS REASONABLE ACCOMMODATION
USDS is committed to providing reasonable accommodations in our recruitment processes for candidates with disabilities, pregnancy, sincerely held religious beliefs or other reasons protected by applicable laws. If you need assistance or a reasonable accommodation, please reach out to us at https://tinyurl.com/USDS-RA
JOB INFORMATION
【For Pay Transparency】 Compensation Description (Annually)
- Washington, DC The base salary range for this position in the selected city is $231660 - $554400 annually.
Compensation may vary outside of this range depending on a number of factors, including a candidate’s qualifications, skills, competencies and experience, and location. Base pay is one part of the Total Package that is provided to compensate and recognize employees for their work, and this role may be eligible for additional discretionary bonuses/incentives, and restricted stock units.
Benefits may vary depending on the nature of employment and the country work location. Employees have day one access to medical, dental, and vision insurance, a 401(k) savings plan with company match, paid parental leave, short-term and long-term disability coverage, life insurance, wellbeing benefits, among others. Employees also receive 10 paid holidays per year, 10 paid sick days per year and 17 days of Paid Personal Time (prorated upon hire with increasing accruals by tenure).
The Company reserves the right to modify or change these benefits programs at any time, with or without notice.
Responsibilities
About The Team
Enterprise Security builds and operates the security capabilities that protect USDS JV's enterprise environments and enable Cyber Defense teams to prevent, detect, investigate, and respond to threats. We bring together software engineering, security engineering, and production operations to turn security requirements into reliable, scalable services. Our work spans security telemetry and analytics, host and network defense, threat-intelligence integration, response automation, and the platforms supporting investigations. We partner with security operations, threat detection and response, infrastructure, identity, gateway, and data teams to strengthen defenses across the enterprise. Our focus is not simply deploying security tools: it is engineering an integrated defense capability with dependable coverage, actionable data, and sustainable operations.
Key Responsibilities
- Own the End-to-End Lifecycle: Direct the design, development, integration, deployment, and operation of the Cyber Defense platform portfolio. Scope includes security information and event management (SIEM), security orchestration, automation and response (SOAR), case management, threat-intelligence integrations, host and network security tooling, and supporting capabilities.
- Define an Integrated Security Platforms: Establish how telemetry, analytics, security controls, and response workflows work together. Set technical standards, resolve architectural gaps, and make build-versus-buy decisions that balance defensive effectiveness, reliability, cost, and long-term maintainability.
- Engineer Reliable Security Data and Automation: Build and improve telemetry ingestion, normalization, enrichment, and service integrations. Partner with detection engineers, threat hunters, and incident responders to translate operational needs into tested platform features and safe, auditable automation.
- Own Production Reliability and Operations: Establish service-level objectives, monitoring, capacity planning, on-call coverage, runbooks, recovery procedures, and disciplined change management. Lead restoration of owned services during production incidents and drive post-incident improvements that eliminate recurring failures and reduce operational toil.
- Continuously Improve Defensive Effectiveness: Use threat intelligence, adversary techniques, control testing, and incident findings to prioritize engineering improvements. Close persistent coverage and control gaps with durable solutions rather than repeated manual remediation.
- Orchestrate Cross-Functional Delivery: Coordinate dependencies and shared control boundaries with Cyber Defense, infrastructure, identity, gateway, privacy, and compliance partners. Establish clear service ownership and support expectations, and provide evidence of control effectiveness for the systems your team owns.
- Build a High-Performing Team. Set the Technical Vision and Roadmap
QUALIFICATIONS
Minimum Qualifications:
- Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, Information Security, or a related field, or equivalent practical experience.
- Demonstrated experience leading software or security engineering teams, including hiring, performance management, developing technical leaders, and delivering complex initiatives across multiple teams.
- A track record of defining security architecture and department-level technical plans, or plans of comparable scope, and owning the delivery and ongoing production operation of enterprise-scale security platforms.
- Strong technical depth in security data platforms or defensive tooling, with experience integrating capabilities such as SIEM, SOAR, host or network defense, threat intelligence, or investigation workflows.
- Strong software engineering judgment across distributed systems, APIs, data pipelines, secure development practices, and automated testing, with the ability to guide architecture and implementation decisions.
- Experience establishing reliable service operations, including observability, incident management, on-call practices, recovery planning, and measurable service objectives.
- Ability to translate security risks and business requirements into prioritized engineering plans, influence partners across organizational boundaries, and communicate technical trade-offs clearly.
Preferred Experience:
- Experience leading a portfolio of interconnected security services and developing technical leads or front-line engineering managers.
- Experience with high-volume security telemetry, event correlation, detection-platform enablement, automated response workflows, and investigation or case-management systems.
- Experience engineering or operating host intrusion detection, network traffic analysis, web application firewall, or data-loss-prevention capabilities.
- Experience operating security services in large-scale cloud or hybrid environments, including Oracle Cloud Infrastructure or AWS.
- Experience using adversary-informed testing, threat modeling, and incident findings to improve security architecture and validate defensive coverage.
- Experience consolidating fragmented tools, reducing operational toil, managing technology dependencies, and improving the cost and maintainability of security services.
- Experience supporting privacy-sensitive environments and maintaining auditable controls and operational evidence.
ABOUT USDS
TikTok USDS Joint Venture LLC is dedicated to the safety and security of millions of Americans who create, discover, and connect with what they love on the apps we operate. The Joint Venture has been established in compliance with the Executive Order signed by President Trump on September 25, 2025. Our foundation is a comprehensive data privacy and cybersecurity program we operate under defined safeguards to protect national security and secure U.S. user data, apps and the algorithm. We safeguard the U.S. content ecosystem, holding decision-making authority for trust and safety policies and moderation. USDS Joint Venture helps ensure Americans can continue to express their creativity, discover new hobbies and interests, and build thriving communities and businesses on a global scale.
On-site presence across teams allows the company to operate with greater speed, alignment, and agility — especially in areas like real-time decision-making, team development, and integrated execution. As such, the company is shifting from a hybrid work model to a fully in-person schedule up to 5 days a week.
WHY JOIN US
Inspiring creativity is at the core of TikTok's mission. Our innovative product is built to help people authentically express themselves, discover and connect – and our global, diverse teams make that possible. Together, we create value for our communities, inspire creativity and bring joy – a mission we work towards every day.
We strive to do great things with great people. We lead with curiosity, humility, and a desire to make impact in a rapidly growing tech company. Every challenge is an opportunity to learn and innovate as one team. We're resilient and embrace challenges as they come. By constantly iterating and fostering an "Always Day 1" mindset, we achieve meaningful breakthroughs for ourselves, our company, and our users. When we create and grow together, the possibilities are limitless. Join us.
DIVERSITY & INCLUSION
TikTok is committed to creating an inclusive space where employees are valued for their skills, experiences, and unique perspectives. Our platform connects people from across the globe and so does our workplace. At TikTok, our mission is to inspire creativity and bring joy. To achieve that goal, we are committed to celebrating our diverse voices and to creating an environment that reflects the many communities we reach. We are passionate about this and hope you are too.
USDS REASONABLE ACCOMMODATION
USDS is committed to providing reasonable accommodations in our recruitment processes for candidates with disabilities, pregnancy, sincerely held religious beliefs or other reasons protected by applicable laws. If you need assistance or a reasonable accommodation, please reach out to us at https://tinyurl.com/USDS-RA
JOB INFORMATION
【For Pay Transparency】 Compensation Description (Annually)
- Washington, DC The base salary range for this position in the selected city is $231660 - $554400 annually.
Compensation may vary outside of this range depending on a number of factors, including a candidate’s qualifications, skills, competencies and experience, and location. Base pay is one part of the Total Package that is provided to compensate and recognize employees for their work, and this role may be eligible for additional discretionary bonuses/incentives, and restricted stock units.
Benefits may vary depending on the nature of employment and the country work location. Employees have day one access to medical, dental, and vision insurance, a 401(k) savings plan with company match, paid parental leave, short-term and long-term disability coverage, life insurance, wellbeing benefits, among others. Employees also receive 10 paid holidays per year, 10 paid sick days per year and 17 days of Paid Personal Time (prorated upon hire with increasing accruals by tenure).
The Company reserves the right to modify or change these benefits programs at any time, with or without notice.
Security Engineer Job Roles in Washington DC
See all 48+ Security Engineer Jobs in Washington DC
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Search Security Engineer Jobs in Washington DCSecurity Engineer Jobs in Washington DC: Frequently Asked Questions
Which companies sponsor visas for security engineers in Washington DC?
Federal contractors and cybersecurity firms are the most active sponsors for security engineers in the DC area. Companies like Booz Allen Hamilton, Leidos, SAIC, Mandiant, and CrowdStrike have consistent H-1B visa filing histories for security engineering roles. Large technology firms with DC offices, including Microsoft and Amazon Web Services, also sponsor regularly. Defense-adjacent roles may have additional clearance requirements that affect eligibility for some international candidates.
Which visa types are most common for security engineer roles in Washington DC?
The H-1B is the most common visa category for security engineers in DC, as the role qualifies as a specialty occupation requiring a relevant bachelor's degree or higher in computer science, information security, or a related field. Candidates from Australia may qualify for the E-3 visa. Canadian and Mexican nationals can explore the TN visa under the computer systems analyst category, though the specific role title affects eligibility.
How to find security engineer visa sponsorship jobs in Washington DC?
Migrate Mate filters job listings specifically by visa sponsorship willingness, making it straightforward to identify security engineer roles in the DC metro area where employers are open to sponsoring. Because DC's market spans federal contractors, commercial cybersecurity firms, and technology companies, using a sponsorship-focused search like Migrate Mate saves significant time compared to manually reviewing postings that rarely disclose sponsorship status upfront.
Which areas in Washington DC have the most security engineer sponsorship jobs?
Most security engineer sponsorship activity in the DC metro area is concentrated in the broader National Capital Region rather than DC proper. Northern Virginia, particularly Tysons Corner, Reston, and the Route 28 corridor, hosts a high density of defense contractors and cybersecurity firms. Bethesda and Rockville in Maryland are also significant clusters, with many federal health and intelligence agency contractors based there.
Are there any DC-specific considerations for security engineers seeking visa sponsorship?
Security clearance requirements are a practical reality for many DC-area security engineer roles. Positions supporting federal agencies or defense contractors often require a Secret or Top Secret clearance, which is generally not available to non-US citizens or green card holders. This narrows the sponsorable pool to commercial or unclassified work, so focusing applications on firms with both cleared and non-cleared practices, such as major consulting firms, tends to produce more viable sponsorship opportunities.
What is the prevailing wage for sponsored security engineer jobs in Washington DC?
U.S. employers sponsoring a visa must pay at least the prevailing wage, which is what workers in the same role, area, and experience level typically earn. The Department of Labor sets this rate to make sure companies aren't hiring foreign workers simply because they'd accept lower pay than a U.S. worker. It varies by job title, location, and experience. You can look up current prevailing wage rates for any occupation and location using the OFLC Wage Search page.