Cybersecurity Data Engineer

Job Description Job Description

Job Title: Cybersecurity Data Engineer (Elastic/ELK, TS Clearance) - Adelphi, MD

Location: Adelphi Laboratory Center (ALC), Adelphi, MD (hybrid, 3 days on-site per week)
Employment Type: Contract W2
Openings:1
Clearance: Active Top Secret (U.S. Citizenship required)
Level: Journeyman or Senior (ELK Administrator or Software Developer labor category)
Pay:$60 - 75/hr

About the Role

CyberCulture is hiring a Cybersecurity Data Engineer to build and run the data pipelines behind a DoD cybersecurity operations mission. You'll work across the Elastic stack (Elasticsearch, Logstash, Kibana, and Fleet) to ingest, transform, and enrich high volumes of security logs and telemetry, and to deliver that data reliably. The data you engineer feeds directly into detection, threat analysis, and incident response, so data quality and pipeline reliability matter. We're open to candidates at the Journeyman or Senior level with either an ELK administration or a software development background.

Key Responsibilities:

• Configure and optimize data ingestion, storage, and retrieval in the Elastic ecosystem (Elasticsearch, Logstash, Kibana, Fleet) for high-volume, high-availability operations
• Design, maintain, and optimize scalable cybersecurity ETL pipelines using the Elastic suite
• Develop transformations and enrichments for a wide range of security log and telemetry sources
• Maintain the index templates, mappings, schemas, and data models that support analytics and detection logic
• Implement data validation, deduplication, and quality controls to protect data integrity
• Automate ingestion, transformation, and engineering workflows with Python, Bash, and related tools
• Monitor pipeline and indexing performance, troubleshoot data flow issues, and improve throughput, storage, and query performance
• Maintain traceability and troubleshoot dependencies across Kafka, Elastic, and CI/CD tooling
• Work with Detection Engineering, Threat Analysis, Endpoint, and other cyber teams to meet operational requirements
• Maintain technical documentation, SOPs, and engineering artifacts

Required Qualifications

• Active Top Secret clearance
• Journeyman: 7-10+ years of relevant experience. A bachelor's degree is typically required, and additional experience may be accepted in place of a degree.
• Hands-on experience with the Elastic stack (Elasticsearch, Logstash, Kibana, and ideally Fleet/Elastic Agent)
• Experience building and maintaining ETL or data ingestion pipelines for log or telemetry data
• Experience with index templates, mappings, and schema design
• Scripting skills in Python and Bash
• Strong troubleshooting skills across distributed data systems
• Able to work on-site in Adelphi, MD three days per week

Nice to Have

• Experience with Kafka
• CI/CD and DevSecOps experience
• Experience with Ruby (useful for Logstash plugins and filters)
• Experience supporting AWS, Azure, GCP, Oracle Cloud, or hybrid and multi-cloud environments
• Knowledge of cybersecurity operations, including SIEM, threat detection, incident response, and security monitoring
• Elastic Certified Engineer or other Elastic certification
• Familiarity with Elastic Common Schema (ECS)

Why Join Our Client

• Hybrid schedule with 2 remote days per week
• Build data infrastructure that directly powers cyber defense operations
• Flexible level placement based on your experience

Company Description

Our direct client is a veteran-owned IT and information management firm based in Luray, Virginia. It has served government and commercial clients since 1989. Is also a certified Service-Disabled Veteran-Owned Small Business (SDVOSB) and HUBZone company, and it is CMMC 2.0 compliant.

They support federal, state, local, and commercial customers. Its federal customers include the Department of War (DoD), the military branches, the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of the Treasury, and the Department of Justice. The company works in two main areas:

Information Technology: cybersecurity, systems and network engineering, cloud architecture, custom software development, infrastructure management, and enterprise IT operations

Information Management: consulting, program and project management, compliance and regulatory support, and process improvement

Company Description Our direct client is a veteran-owned IT and information management firm based in Luray, Virginia. It has served government and commercial clients since 1989. Is also a certified Service-Disabled Veteran-Owned Small Business (SDVOSB) and HUBZone company, and it is CMMC 2.0 compliant. They support federal, state, local, and commercial customers. Its federal customers include the Department of War (DoD), the military branches, the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of the Treasury, and the Department of Justice. The company works in two main areas: Information Technology: cybersecurity, systems and network engineering, cloud architecture, custom software development, infrastructure management, and enterprise IT operations Information Management: consulting, program and project management, compliance and regulatory support, and process improvement