Security Engineer Jobs in Washington, D.C., USA

Looking for a security engineer job in Washington, D.C.? Choose from 23 open roles at 7 employers. Explore real salary data and skills breakdown across remote, hybrid and on-site roles.

23 Open roles
7 Companies hiring
โ€” Average salary

What do Security engineers in Washington, D.C. work on?

The titles on this page reflect a wide spread of security disciplines. Application and product security engineers typically design threat models, review code for vulnerabilities, and build controls into software delivery pipelines. Detection and response roles focus on monitoring systems, identifying threats, and building the platforms that support incident handling. Infrastructure and DevOps-adjacent security roles involve hardening cloud environments and managing access controls across multi-cloud setups. Threat intelligence positions require tracking adversary behaviour and feeding findings into defensive programmes.

Several titles carry a public sector or national security flavour, reflecting D.C.'s federal contractor presence โ€” for instance, the Application Security Engineer at Accenture Federal Services involves securing CI/CD pipelines and software supply chains for federal development teams, with a US citizenship and public trust clearance requirement stated explicitly.

Staff-level titles appear frequently, suggesting many postings seek engineers who can operate with autonomy and influence design decisions, though seniority indicators are absent from a large portion of the listings.

Skills and experience employers ask for

Python is the most widely mentioned skill across these postings, followed by AWS, CI/CD tooling, Kubernetes, and GCP. Multi-cloud familiarity appears broadly relevant. The presence of LLMs and Agents in a notable share of postings points to some roles involving AI system security specifically. These counts reflect mentions in job descriptions and do not indicate that each skill is a formal requirement in every posting. The sample is small, so patterns should be treated as indicative rather than definitive.

Python 78%
AWS 57%
CI/CD 52%
Kubernetes 48%
GCP 43%
Azure 39%
Evaluation 35%
TypeScript 35%
Terraform 35%
LLMs 30%
Agents 30%
APIs 17%
Docker 13%
Java 13%

Washington, D.C. office, hybrid or remote?

Almost all postings on this page specify on-site work, with only a minority indicating hybrid arrangements. No postings state fully remote eligibility. This makes Washington D.C. physical presence a practical expectation for nearly all roles listed here. For hybrid postings, the specific days or flexibility terms are not stated in the fact pack. Candidates should verify exact attendance expectations directly with each employer before applying, as work-mode labels can vary in practice.

Make your application specific to the work

  1. Check clearance requirements early At least one posting explicitly requires US citizenship and public trust clearance eligibility. Given the federal contractor presence among these employers, candidates should review clearance and citizenship requirements for each role before investing time in an application.
  2. Review the skills table honestly Python, AWS, and CI/CD tooling appear frequently across descriptions; reviewing your experience against those areas before writing a cover letter will help you identify where to draw on specific examples.
  3. Expect on-site work Because the large majority of these postings specify on-site attendance, confirm your ability to work from a Washington D.C. location before applying, and clarify any hybrid terms directly with the recruiter.
  4. Note that pay is not advertised None of the postings on this page include an advertised salary range, so candidates should be prepared to discuss compensation expectations during the recruitment process or research employer pay bands independently.

Questions about Security Engineer jobs in Washington, D.C.

At least one posting on this page explicitly states a US citizenship and public trust clearance requirement. Most other postings do not state clearance requirements, but that should not be taken as confirmation they are clearance-free โ€” it is not stated either way for most roles.

No postings on this page are listed as remote. The majority specify on-site work, and a small number indicate hybrid arrangements. Candidates should treat on-site attendance in Washington D.C. as the likely expectation and confirm specifics with each employer.

No advertised pay ranges are included in any of the postings on this page. The one exception in the sample summaries โ€” the Accenture Federal Services application security role โ€” lists a range of $78,600 to $160,200, but that figure applies only to that individual posting and should not be used as a general benchmark.

The employers represented in these postings are Scale AI, Anthropic, Palantir, Okta, xAI, Accenture Federal Services, and The Nuclear Company. No other employers appear in this snapshot.

Titles on this page span application security, product security, infrastructure security, detection and response, threat intelligence, DevOps and infrastructure, AI security, and national security policy. The spread suggests these employers are hiring across multiple security functions rather than concentrating on a single area.

Jobs checked 37 minutes ago. ยท Guide reviewed 9 September 2026.