Cyber-Physical Systems Reverse Engineer

Who We Are:
Kudu Dynamics is Leidos Owned Company, forged out of a decade of experience in computer network operations and staffed with talent who have built, overseen, and enhanced capabilities throughout the entire USG arsenal. Our team of hackers and engineers have experience spanning centuries of research, development, and operations missions - across desktop, mobile, IoT, and embedded platforms. Kudu Dynamics, a Leidos company is uniquely qualified to anticipate tomorrow’s threats and build the next generation of capabilities.

We are looking for a Cyber-Physical Systems Reverse Engineer to support a new project researching and developing novel capabilities for maritime cybersecurity. This is the kind of job where you get to poke at real systems, ask why something behaved differently than expected, and keep digging when the answer is, "Huh, that's weird."
This role focuses on understanding how complex embedded and cyber-physical systems actually behave, not just how they were intended to behave. On our team, you will work hands-on with real embedded systems and operational technology in a lab environment, analyzing hardware, firmware, communications interfaces, and interactions between components. You will reverse engineer and emulate embedded devices, develop automated methods for exploring system behavior, and design experiments to identify unexpected or emergent behaviors, undocumented features, or even bugs and misconfigurations. This role calls for the creative application of multiple skill sets across embedded systems, firmware, software, hardware, and cybersecurity. You may find yourself building test harnesses and automated workflows, instrumenting analog and digital systems, integrating physical devices with software analysis and cyber reasoning tools, and developing code.

Responsibilities Include:

Develop, integrate, and debug embedded firmware for real-time and
resource-constrained systems, including RTOS-based applications, device drivers, hardware interfaces, and low-level system software
Design and implement simulation, emulation, and automated test environments for embedded and cyber-physical systems, including tools for exploring system behavior, reproducing observed effects, and exercising hardware and firmware
Analyze and reverse engineer embedded devices, firmware, communications protocols, sensors, and other system components to understand both intended functionality and real-world behavior
Develop production-quality C/C++ and Python software to automate testing,
instrumentation, experimentation, and analysis, including integration with laboratory hardware and software-based analysis tools
Conduct hands-on laboratory testing using embedded debugging tools and analog/digital instrumentation; critically analyze, document, and communicate technical findings.

Minimum Qualifications:

Experience developing embedded firmware in C/C++, including real-time systems, RTOS concepts, interrupts, concurrency, memory-mapped I/O, device drivers, and hardware peripherals
Experience with embedded hardware and common communications interfaces such as SPI, I2C, UART, CAN, USB, Ethernet, or wireless interfaces, including debugging hardware/software interactions
Experience developing simulation, emulation, automated testing, or hardware/software test harnesses for embedded systems
Proficiency with Python or similar scripting languages for automation, testing, analysis, and development of engineering tools
Experience using embedded development and diagnostic equipment such as
JTAG/SWD debuggers, logic/protocol analyzers, oscilloscopes, spectrum analyzers, function generators, or similar instrumentation.

Nice-to-Have Qualifications:

Experience reverse engineering embedded devices and firmware, including use of tools such as Ghidra, Binary Ninja, IDA Pro, or similar tools and the ability to analyze assembly for one or more processor architectures.
Experience with program analysis and vulnerability research techniques such as fuzzing, symbolic execution, static/dynamic analysis, binary exploitation, and modern exploit mitigations.
Experience with processor or full-system emulation, hardware-in-the-loop (HIL), software-in-the-loop (SIL), or development of custom models for processors, peripherals, sensors, or other embedded components.
Experience with digital signal processing, RF systems, software-defined radio, wireless communications, audio/signal processing, or MATLAB-based modeling and analysis.
Understanding of digital and analog circuits, hardware reverse engineering, low-level computer architecture, and the interaction between software, firmware, and physical system behavior.

If you're looking for comfort, keep scrolling. At Leidos, we outthink, outbuild, and outpace the status quo — because the mission demands it. We're not hiring followers. We're recruiting the ones who disrupt, provoke, and refuse to fail. Step 10 is ancient history. We're already at step 30 — and moving faster than anyone else dares.

Original Posting:

Pay Range:

The Leidos pay range for this job level is a general guideline only and not a guarantee of compensation or salary. Additional factors considered in extending an offer include (but are not limited to) responsibilities of the job, education, experience, knowledge, skills, and abilities, as well as internal equity, alignment with market data, applicable bargaining agreement (if any), or other law.