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Open nowPosted 42 days ago

Facility Security Officer — Cognition

a16z portfolio7,337 open roles

Pay
$90,000 – $175,000 a year
Where
Washington DC, United States; Washington DC
Work mode
On site
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Your applicationOpen nowFacility Security Officer — Cognitiona16z portfolio · Washington DC, United States; Washington DC

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This job: posted 42 days ago

The posting

We are an applied AI lab building end-to-end software agents.

We're the makers of Devin, the first AI software engineer.

Our team is extremely talent-dense. Among our founding team, we have world-class competitive programmers, former founders, and leaders from companies at the cutting edge of AI including Scale AI, Palantir, Cursor, Waymo, Tesla, Lunchclub, Modal, Google DeepMind, and Nuro.

Building Devin is just the first step—our hardest challenges still lie ahead. If you’re excited to solve some of the world’s biggest problems and build AI that can reason on real-world tasks, apply to join us.

About the role

This is a rare opportunity to build a security program from the ground up. As Cognition's founding Facility Security Officer, you will stand up, own, and run the industrial security program that enables our rapidly growing federal business — supporting customers across the U.S. Government, including NASA JPL, the Social Security Administration, and the Department of War, as well as the defense industrial base.

You will be the appointed FSO of record with the Defense Counterintelligence and Security Agency (DCSA), responsible for establishing and maintaining our facility clearance (FCL), administering personnel security clearances for a fast-scaling cleared workforce, and ensuring day-to-day compliance with the National Industrial Security Program Operating Manual (NISPOM, 32 CFR Part 117). You will work directly with federal sales, deployed engineering, legal, and people operations to make sure security is an enabler of the mission, not a bottleneck.

Because you are first, you will define the playbook: the processes, tooling, and culture of security at a company that moves fast and holds itself to a high bar. Your judgment will shape how Cognition scales cleared work across programs, facilities, and classification levels.

Core responsibilities

  • Serve as the appointed FSO under 32 CFR Part 117 (NISPOM), owning the establishment, maintenance, and administration of Cognition's facility clearance in partnership with DCSA.
  • Administer the personnel security clearance lifecycle end-to-end: initiate, track, and maintain investigations and adjudications in DISS/NBIS, manage periodic reinvestigations and continuous vetting enrollment, and conduct indoctrinations and debriefings.
  • Establish and run the insider threat program as the Insider Threat Program Senior Official (ITPSO), including required training, monitoring processes, and reporting.
  • Prepare for and lead DCSA security vulnerability assessments and annual self-inspections; drive remediation of findings and maintain a posture of continuous review readiness.
  • Develop and deliver required security education: initial briefings, annual refresher training, foreign travel pre-briefs and debriefs, and derivative classification training where applicable.
  • Manage safeguarding of classified information and visits: visit authorization requests, classified meeting support, courier procedures, and (as the program grows) closed area accreditation.
  • Author and maintain security documentation: Standard Practice Procedures (SPP), technology control plans, DD Form 254 review and flow-down for classified contracts, and reporting of change conditions (SF-328, KMP changes) to DCSA.
  • Submit required reports — suspicious contacts, adverse information, security violations, and foreign travel — accurately and on time.
  • Partner with GTM, deployed engineering, and legal on capture and contract execution: advise on facility and personnel clearance requirements in solicitations, and forecast clearance needs against program timelines.
  • Coordinate with IT and security engineering on the physical and procedural controls that support classified and CUI work, including interface with FedRAMP High and DoD IL4/IL5/IL6 environments.

What we value

  • Ownership — you've built a security program from zero and would rather ship a working process today than wait for a perfect one.
  • Judgment under ambiguity — you can apply the NISPOM to novel situations at a company whose product and customers evolve monthly.
  • An enablement mindset — you find the compliant path to "yes" and communicate requirements in plain language to engineers and executives alike.
  • Precision and follow-through — you track deadlines and reporting requirements without being reminded.
  • Credibility with government stakeholders — DCSA representatives, contracting officers, and customer security offices trust your word.
  • Comfort operating across many contexts simultaneously — multiple programs, customers, and classification levels at once.

Requirements

  • Active U.S. Government security clearance at TS/SCI.
  • 5+ years of industrial security experience under the NISP, including 2+ years as an appointed FSO (or Assistant FSO) at a cleared defense contractor or technology company.
  • FSO Program Management for Possessing Facilities certification (or Non-Possessing with willingness to complete Possessing curriculum), plus current ITPSO training.
  • Demonstrated hands-on proficiency with DISS, NISS, NBIS/eQIP, and SF-86 processing.
  • Working knowledge of 32 CFR Part 117 (NISPOM), the personnel security adjudicative guidelines (SEAD 4), continuous vetting (SEAD 3 reporting), and DD Form 254 administration.
  • Experience preparing for and passing DCSA security reviews, including self-inspection programs and remediation.
  • Excellent written communication — you will author the security procedures and briefings the whole company relies on.
  • Ability to work on-site in Washington, D.C. and travel occasionally to other Cognition offices and customer sites.

You might excel if you

  • Have stood up an FCL or a security program at a startup or a company new to the federal market, and enjoyed building from zero.
  • Hold additional credentials such as ISP certification or CDSE FSO curriculum completion, or have experience with SCI/SAP program security (CSSO/CPSO).
  • Have supported software or cloud companies pursuing FedRAMP, IL5/IL6, or classified cloud deployments and understand how personnel security intersects with those boundaries.
  • Thrive in high-intensity environments where the mission-critical nature of the work demands sustained effort and a high tolerance for ambiguity.

Equal Opportunity

Cognition is an equal opportunity employer. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, age, disability, veteran status, or any other protected characteristic under applicable law. We are committed to providing reasonable accommodations for candidates with disabilities throughout the hiring process - please let us know if you need any.

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