Your Impact at LILA

Lila runs autonomous science facilities — labs full of instruments, robotics, and controllers that produce the experimental data that is the company's core IP. Securing that environment is a different problem from securing laptops and SaaS, and we are building the program from the ground up. This co-op works on that build, not on the side of it.

The role sits at the seam between IT, Lab IT, and OT, spanning four workstreams: OT asset visibility and tooling, vulnerability and patch management across IT/OT, SOC integration and threat intelligence, and program build. The work product outlives the term.

What we are looking for is someone curious enough to trace a problem end to end without being handed the answer, and persistent enough to stay with it when the architecture is not documented anywhere. We will teach the OT domain. We cannot teach that.

What You'll Be Building

• Own day-to-day OT asset discovery and reconciliation, closing the gap between device detection and documented ownership
• Prioritize vulnerabilities across IT/OT environments by real consequence (safety, experiment integrity, IP exposure, throughput) rather than raw CVSS scores
• Coordinate remediation with automation engineering within established maintenance windows
• Integrate OT and network telemetry into the SIEM, triage alerts, and supply OT context the SOC team lacks
• Track threat intelligence relevant to lab automation and biotech; convert findings into detections and written briefings
• Build program artifacts (asset intake process, connectivity risk reviews, segmentation documentation) that remain operational after the term ends

What You'll Need to Succeed

• Pursuing a degree in cybersecurity, computer science, information technology, network engineering, or a related field
• Working knowledge of TCP/IP networking: VLANs, subnetting, routing and switching basics, firewall concepts (the single most important prerequisite — OT security is a networking job before it is a security job)
• Comfort on the command line (Windows and Linux) and basic scripting in Python or PowerShell for data reconciliation and reporting
• Strong written communication skills, including the ability to explain technical changes to non-technical audiences and security constraints to operational teams
• Availability to work onsite at Alewife on a hybrid schedule, including hands-on work with physical hardware

Bonus Points For

• Exposure to vulnerability management concepts: CVE/CVSS, scanning, remediation workflow
• Familiarity with SIEM or log analysis on any platform (Splunk, Sentinel, Elastic, Chronicle); coursework, CTF, or homelab experience counts
• Cloud fundamentals, AWS preferred
• Any exposure to ICS/OT, SCADA, lab instrumentation, or robotics environments