Information Assurance Engineer / Analyst

Career Area: Information Technology

Occupation Group: Network and Systems Engineering

Salary

Percentile wages tell how much a certain percentage of an overall population in a geographic area or within a given industry or field makes. The percentile wage estimate is the value of a wage below which a certain percent of workers fall.

An example would be the 25th percentile, 25 percent of workers employed in that occupation earn less and 75 percent earn more than the estimated wage value. At the 75th percentile, 75 percent of workers employed in that occupation earn less and 25 percent earn more than the estimated wage value.

A typical Information Assurance Engineer / Analyst earns the following wages (national and state):

State

The average salary in North Carolina for those pursuing this career is $95,355

National

The average salary in the United States for those pursuing this career is $94,064

What Does a Professional in this Career Do?

Designs, plans, and deploys changes to current software architecture. Focuses mainly on security and risk assessment. Identifies current risks associated with software and hardware systems. Works with other security experts and employees to ensure the safety of both customer information and internal employees. Protects a company's digital assets from unauthorized access.

Employment Trends

The job demand and job growth statistics shown here were derived from job posts over the past year. Expected job growth projections are extrapolated from year-over-year job post listing history.

Job demand and job growth is expected at the following rates:

Skills

A professional in this position typically utilizes the following skills in the course of everyday work in this exciting and challenging field:

Baseline Skills

The following are baseline skills every Information Assurance Engineer / Analyst is expected to have in order to experience success in this field:

• Communication Skills: The ability to convey information to another effectively and efficiently.
• Teamwork / Collaboration: Experience working in collaborative efforts with a team to achieve a common goal or to complete a task in the most effective and efficient way.
• Planning: Working experience with the process of thinking about and organizing the activities required to achieve desired goals.
• Research: Experience performing creative and systematic work to understand a product, market, or customer, either before building a new solution, or to troubleshoot an existing issue
• Writing: Experience expressing business messages effectively in written form. This may include planning drafting and revising as necessary.

Specialized Skills

These skills are specific to working in this career:

• Information Assurance: Information assurance (IA) is the practice of assuring information and managing risks related to the use, processing, storage, and transmission of information or data and the systems and processes used for those purposes.
• Information Systems: An information system (IS) is an organized system for the collection, organization, storage and communication of information.
• Information Security: Information security, sometimes shortened to InfoSec, is the practice of preventing unauthorized access, use, disclosure, disruption, modification, inspection, recording or destruction of information.
• Risk Management Framework: Working experience with the federal government policy and standards to help secure information systems (computers and networks).
• Customer Service: Working experience with the provision of service to customers before, during and after a purchase.

Distinguishing Skills

Any Information Assurance Engineer / Analyst that possesses the following skills will stand out against the competition:

• Host Based Security Systems: The Host Based Security System (HBSS) is the official name given to the United States Department of Defense (DOD) commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) suite of software applications used within the DOD to monitor, detect, and defend the DOD computer networks and systems.
• Vulnerability analysis: Working experience of Vulnerability analysis, which is the process of identifying, quantifying, and prioritizing (or ranking) the vulnerabilities in a system. Examples of systems for which vulnerability assessments are performed include, but are not limited to, information technology systems, energy supply systems, water supply systems, transportation systems, and communication systems. Such assessments may be conducted on behalf of a range of different organizations, from small businesses up to large regional infrastructures.
• Cybersecurity Assessment: Working experience of Cybersecurity Assessment, which is a diagnostic test that helps individuals, institutions or organizations identify their cybersecurity risk level and determine the maturity of their cybersecurity programs.
• NIST Security Standards: Working experience of NIST Security Standards, which is responsible for developing cybersecurity standards, guidelines, tests, and metrics for the protection of non-national security federal information systems.
• Configuration Management: Configuration management (CM) is a systems engineering process for establishing and maintaining consistency of a product's performance, functional, and physical attributes with its requirements, design, and operational information throughout its life.

Experience

This position typically requires the following level of experience. The numbers presented in the pie charts below were derived from actual job posts over the past year. Not all job postings list experience requirements.

Common Job Titles

It is possible to find work in this field in positions commonly listed as the following job titles:

• Information Architect
• Information Assurance Analyst
• Information Assurance Engineer
• Information Assurance Specialist
• Data/Information Architect

Similar Occupations

If you are interested in exploring similar occupations, you may want to research the following job titles:

• Cyber Security Engineer
• Cyber Security Manager / Administrator
• Cyber Security Architect
• Systems Engineer
• Systems Architect