Careers at NSA

NSA is about protecting our country and its citizens. It's about facing off against unseen adversaries. Understanding their languages. Protecting information systems. Keeping leaders informed and the nation safe. NSA is about doing something that matters. And using really advanced technology to make it happen.

These are the unique challenges that the people of NSA are faced with every day. And you could be too. Come explore the exciting career opportunities at NSA. You won't find them anywhere else.


Full-Time Professionals

New full-time opportunities are being posted all the time, so check back periodically to see if any sound interesting to you.

Some unique opportunities worth exploring are the various Development Programs, in which a full-time employee typically gets extensive training and then performs multiple six to nine month tours in various offices across the Agency. These provide a way to better experience the breadth of work done across NSA while also making meaningful contributions to the mission of each office. Development Program positions are typically named as such in the position title.

Challenge Resources

Here are some helpful resources to get you on the right track with this year's Challenge.

Treat this list as a starting point. It's not exhaustive, and you'll definitely need to do additional research on your own. We've updated the list, but There are probably (okay, definitely) things in this list that aren't actually part of this year's challenge.

That said, if you're feeling stuck, chances are something in the links below will help you.

Note: This list is not an endorsement of any of the sites. The external sites below are not subject to federal information quality, privacy, or security guidelines.


Our top three:

Other interesting sites and tools (listed alphabetically):

Reverse Engineering Lectures

These lectures are from the NSA Capstone Course.

The below practice problems are from the NSA Capstone Course.

Technical Resources

Files for the 2021 challenge


Files for the 2019 challenge


Ethereum (for 2018 challenge):


Files from the 2018 challenge:


Files from the 2017 challenge:

The 2017 tech talk slides walk through solving the 2016 challenge.


Files from the 2016 challenge:

The 2016 tech talk slides walk through solving the 2015 challenge.


Files from the 2015 challenge:

The 2015 tech talk slides walk through solving the 2014 challenge.


Files from the 2014 challenge:

The 2014 tech talk slides walk through solving the 2013 challenge.


Files from the 2013 challenge: