Lead Security Specialist

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 CommissionAs 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/INrequirements, 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 regulatoryrequirements, 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 overlappingresponsibilities. Influence decision-making in high-stakes environments by articulating securityrequirements, resolving disputes, guiding personnel on clearance matters, and representing the agency in interagency councils and working groups.