Billington CyberSecurity Summit
September 8 - 10, 2026 | Washington, DC
Visit the SEI at Booth 225
SEI Job OpeningsSoftware is a force multiplier for defense and national security, and the Carnegie Mellon University Software Engineering Institute (CMU SEI) delivers cutting-edge, empirical, rigorous, objective, and difference-making software research, development, and technology transition for rapid response needs and long-term support.
Established in 1984, CMU SEI is sponsored by the U.S. Department of War (DoW) as a federally funded research and development center (FFRDC), which is a nonprofit, public–private partnerships operating in the public interest. CMU SEI is the only DoW-sponsored FFRDC chartered to improve both software’s state-of-the-art and state-of-the-practice.
CMU SEI’s research and technology transition program creates and matures software engineering, cybersecurity, artificial intelligence (AI), and software acquisition technologies at the intersection of government, industry, and academia.
- Working with defense programs and federal agencies, CMU SEI research and development produces measurable results to engineer mission-practical AI systems, ensure cyber dominance and resilience, and deploy software innovations with confidence. As an FFRDC, we fulfill core DoW software engineering needs that are unmet by other sources.
- CMU SEI collaborates with software, cybersecurity, and AI companies, not as a competitor but as an independent and unbiased trusted advisor in service of our DoW sponsor. In that way, CMU SEI helps defense and national security contractor organizations engineer mission-practical, secure, fit-for-purpose, and evolvable software-reliant or AI systems.
- Part of CMU, a global research university annually ranked as the best for computer science and engineering, CMU SEI provides a conduit to elevate invention by CMU researchers into tools, technologies, and procedures relevant for the DoW and to transfer national security and defense perspectives into future CMU basic research. In addition, CMU SEI technical staff maintain close relationships with top researchers and faculty in software engineering, cybersecurity, and AI at universities across the nation.