Asd4, 5 And 6 Cryptology Software Developers & Vulnerability Researchers

ASD is entering an exciting phase of growth, innovation and transformation. Our agency has committed to delivering REDSPICE, which is the most significant single investment in the Australian Signals Directorate’s 75 years
ASD has a dual mission of providing foreign signals intelligence and cyber security for Australia. ASD, through its strategic objectives delivers its mission by informing government, protecting Australian networks and disrupting those that would harm Australia and its interests.
ASD's Cryptology section is the Australian Government expert on cryptography and cryptanalysis. Cryptography is the study of making secure communication systems and cryptanalysis is the study of breaking secure communication systems. The Cryptology section supports ASD's mission through the application of its expertise. It is a multidisciplinary team with diverse skills, background and experience, comprised of people who have joined from industry, academia and fresh from completing study.
The team has a culture that values technical and professional development of its team members and promotes opportunities for development. The team values collaboration, knowledge sharing, creativity in thinking and perseverance. The team culture supports flexible work practices (including part-time arrangements) so that people can balance their work and what is important to them outside of work.
About the Role
The Cryptology section is expanding and seeking to fill multiple positions across software developer and vulnerability researcher roles. These positions range from entry level to senior team members. The cryptology discipline lives in the intersection of mathematics and computer science. The roles will leverage your knowledge from either field to help ASD prosecute its mission.
The section is looking to recruit people with experience or an ability to develop within/across three main streams: Application Development, High Performance Computing (HPC) and Vulnerability Research. Examples of the types of things you will do (or learn to do) in each stream are:
Application Development

• write performant code to implement a cryptanalytic algorithm
• integrate externally-written applications into existing systems
• write and deploy applications suited for scalable, fault-tolerant environments
• perform maintenance, bug-fixes and enhancements of existing applications
• write tests to improve code quality and maintainability
• expose and monitor application performance data through metrics and logs

High Performance Computing

• add or change code to improve the performance of an existing codebase
• write performant code in a low level language
• write a code kernel to run on a GPU
• compile and configure a piece of software to run on an HPC cluster
• advise colleagues on effective use of HPC platforms
• find and fix a bug in code written for a specialised architecture

Vulnerability Research

• inspect packet captures to understand behaviour of a cryptographic protocol
• use a decompiler to find and understand cryptography used by a piece of software
• write code to detect a cryptographic vulnerability based on packet capture data
• review standards documentation to understand a cryptographic primitive
• write code to emulate a cryptographic protocol
• write code for a proof of concept to test a theoretical vulnerability
• use a debugger to understand the control flow that sensitive data traverses

Our Ideal Candidate
We are looking for candidates who either are or have the potential to be Cryptology Software Developers and Vulnerability Researchers. This includes candidates with experience in any of the following areas:

• low-level programming (e.g. C/C++, Assembly, Rust)
• parallel, shared memory, distributed memory or GPU application programming
• full-stack application development
• cloud native application development
• software reverse engineering
• network and protocol analysis
• computer science
• mathematics/statistics
• modern cryptography

The most important characteristics you will display are

• perseverance and resilience in the face of difficult problems
• the drive to continuously learn (from others and independently)
• desire to work collaboratively and conscientiously with the team

Eligibility
Citizenship - To be eligible for employment with ASD, applicants must be an Australian citizen.
Health Assessment - The preferred applicant may be required to undergo a medical examination conducted by the Agency’s preferred medical provider.
Organisational Suitability Assessment – To be eligible for employment within ASD, the preferred applicant will be required to undergo an Organisational Suitability Assessment (see Organisational Assessment section).
Security Clearance - The preferred applicant will be required to successfully undergo the security clearance vetting process at a specified clearance level. The preferred applicant MUST be willing to disclose all relevant and required information.
It is a condition of employment that applicants are willing and able to obtain and maintain the requisite security clearance for the duration of their employment with ASD.
Application Closing Date: 04 February 2024
For further information please review the job information pack, reference ASD/11978/23 on .