Cybersecurity and Secure Networking Consultant

Spektrum have a wide range of exciting opportunities in several global locations.

We are always looking to add great new talent to our team and look forward to hearing from you.

Spektrum supports apex purchasers (NATO, UN, EU, and National Government and Defence) and their Tier 1 supplier ecosystem with a wide range of specialist services. We provide our clients with professional services, specialised aerospace and defence sales, delivery, and operational subject matter expertise. We are looking for personnel to join our team and support key client projects.

Who we are supporting 

The NATO Communication and Information Agency (NCIA) is responsible for providing secure and effective communications and information technology (IT) services to NATO's member countries and its partners. The agency was established in 2012 and is headquartered in Brussels, Belgium.

The NCIA provides a wide range of services, including:

• Cyber Security: The NCIA provides advanced cybersecurity solutions to protect NATO's communication networks and information systems against cyber threats.
• Command and Control Systems: The NCIA develops and maintains the systems used by NATO's military commanders to plan and execute operations.
• Satellite Communications: The NCIA provides satellite communications services to enable secure and reliable communications between NATO forces.
• Electronic Warfare: The NCIA provides electronic warfare services to support NATO's mission to detect, deny, and defeat threats to its communication networks.
• Information Management: The NCIA manages NATO's information technology infrastructure, including its databases, applications, and servers.

Overall, the NCIA plays a critical role in ensuring the security and effectiveness of NATO's communication and information technology capabilities.

The program

Assistance and Advisory Service (AAS)

The NATO Communications and Information Agency (NCI Agency) is NATO’s principal C3 capability deliverer and CIS service provider. It provides, maintains and defends the NATO enterprise-wide information technology infrastructure to enable Allies to consult together under Article IV, and, when required, stand together in the face of attack under Article V.

To provide these critical services, in the modern evolving dynamic environment the NCI Agency needs to build and maintain high performance-engaged workforce. The NCI Agency workforce strategically consists of three major categorise's: NATO International Civilians (NIC)'s, Military (Mil), and Interim Workforce Consultants (IWC)'s. The IWCs are a critical part of the overall NCI Agency workforce and make up approximately 15 percent of the total workforce.

Role Background

Within its mission, the NATO Digital Staff (NDS) is actively driving forward a number of specific areas in conjunction with the nations, and specifically the Digital Standardisation and Interoperability (DSI) Branch are driving resilient secure communications interoperability for wireless and wired communications and tactical routing for Multi-Domain Operations (MDO) in line with the 2022 Strategic Concept, NATO 2030, Alliance C3 Policy, and related policies and strategies

DSI Secure Communications helps the Nations achieve interoperable, secure, federated and resilient Alliance C4 communications at the tactical, deployable and strategic levels, including application of Emerging and Disruptive Technologies (EDTs) such as 5G, Zero Trust, quantum computing, and virtualization. The tasks are aligned with the Digital Policy Committee (DPC) Lines of Development (LoD), providing support to the work of the DPC Substructure in Capability Panels 1 and 4 and their subordinate Capability Teams (CaT) including (but not only) for Network and Security, Line of Sight, Beyond Line of Sight and SATCOM

In this context, the NDS Programme of Work (PoW) requires expert technical and managerial knowledge in Interoperability topics, particularly in the areas dealing with secure networking, secure voice, communication architectures, Zero Trust, quantum computing, and data centric security, among others, that contribute to Interoperability in the NATO context.

Under this PoW project, NATO Integrated Mobile Services Centre provides SME support services to the NDS to directly support the NATO Alliance Capabilities and indirectly support the development of NATO Enterprise CIS.

Role Duties and Responsibilities

• The selected contractor will be responsible to assist the NCIA PoW teams and the NDS sponsors in providing coordination and management of the different work strands, including:
  • Developing the necessary supporting artefacts;
  • Supporting the PoW project manager and the various technical leads;
  • Proactively coordinating activities with other NCIA PoW teams (working in related topic areas and sub-programmes in the overall NDS PoW); and,
  • Exercising technical leadership and management of work packages within the Secure Communications Interoperability work strands as necessary.
• Participate in portfolio management, programme management and associated coordination activities with a view to improve the situational awareness at portfolio and programme levels, identify links between the NDS PoW and other NATO programmes of work and initiatives, develop technical and non-technical dashboards, and liaise with non-technical staff.
• Organize and engage in scoping discussions with sponsors and project team members on PoW activities, elaborate work plans, and act as technical manager and/or senior contributor to the work to be conducted.
• Prepare, organize and lead scoping and coordination meetings with the different PoW external and internal stakeholders, and contribute to overall coherence and awareness in PoW execution.
• Provide technical briefings and presentations on the progress of the various work activities, making sure that work plans are followed and meet internal and external milestones.
• Elaborate high-quality technical reports and briefs to be circulated as NATO technical documents and inputs to NATO committees and other forums.
• Perform other duties as required, including deputizing for the senior NCIA project team members as required.
• Provide SME support on secure communications interoperability and resilience topics that facilitate the Digital Policy Committee (DPC) substructure (with focus on the Network and Security Capability Team) to maintain standards, adopt specifications into NATO standards (such as SCIP and NINE), and develop standards when necessary;
• Provide SME support to encourage the use of DPC communication standards, with a particular focus on SCIP, NINE, Zero Trust, and Protected Core Networking;
• Contribute SME knowledge to DPC secure communications Policies / Guidance / Architectures as directed by the NDS;
• Develop presentations and briefs to support DPC discussions on secure communications and resilience to facilitate a shared understanding among different stakeholders on interoperability aspects and architectural options for resilient federated secure communications;
• Help to ensure alignment of DPC secure communication standards (voice and data) with NATO requirements and with DPC policies/ strategies/ principles (such as Cloud First, Zero Trust, service based, crypto modernization, NATO 2030, Multi Domain Operations, etc.);
• Maintain technical awareness of Federated Mission Network (FMN) specifications in the area of federated communication standards and identify potential DPC work items to support FMN. This may require engagement with FMN technical syndicate(s).

Essential Skills and Experience

• A senior profile matching the level of a principal engineer with a solid scientific background and with a proven track record of technical management work in the area of secure communications (voice and data) in defence networks.
• With limited guidance, coordinate activities with the different stakeholders and organize meetings and discussions to discuss and/or present interim results;
• Engaging with stakeholders, understanding their needs, problems and requests, and proposing constructive ways ahead;
• Planning, coordinating and execution of technical and scientific work for defence projects involving multiple stakeholders, including development of project management artefacts and documentation like plans, status reports, briefs, etc.;
• Collecting disparate information from multiple sources and building bodies of knowledge;
• Conducting analysis and developing concepts in the areas of secure communications, including applying architecture methodologies where relevant;
• Communicating effectively in English both in writing and orally, with excellent writing and briefing skills to different types of audiences (including senior technical and non-technical stakeholders), with presentations at conferences and NATO venues and writing high-quality technical reports for NATO circulation;
• Recent NATO experience, including direct support to NATO technical consultation activities under the Digital Policy Committee Substructure and their related work.
• Detailed understanding of secure networking in NATO and multinational contexts, including at the NATO Network and Security Capability Team (N&S CaT);
• Experience and knowledge in current developments in NATO communications, such as connectivity resilience, Next Generation Networks, FMN Specifications, Protected Core Networking, IPv6, Software Defined WAN, the SCIP (secure voice) and NINE (secure IP) standards, Zero Trust, and NATO and multinational scenarios for secure IP and voice communications, including in NATO Enterprise related contexts.

Working Location

• Remote

Working Policy

• Off-Site

Travel

• Some travel to other NATO sites may be required

Security Clearance

• Valid National or NATO Secret personal security clearance

We never know what new opportunities might be just over the horizon. If this opportunity isn't for you please feel free to send us your resume anyway and be the first to know if something suitable for your skills and experience comes up.