SL402398-Winter 2027-CIS*6540 Advanced Penetration Testing and Exploit Development

Sessional Lecturer Work Assignment
Sessional Lecturer, Unit 2
Academic Unit: 
School of Computer Science
Semester(s) of Assignment(s): 
Winter 2027
Number of Available Work Assignment(s) / Sections: 
1
Level of Work Assignment(s): 
1
Right of First Refusal (RoFR)
A Sessional Lecturer holds a RoFR (i.e., for a particular course) if they have successfully taught the course in the past six (6) semesters. A SL who holds a RoFR to this course is required to exercise their right by way of the online hiring system. Also see: What is Right of First Refusal (RoFR)?
A Sessional Lecturer Currently Holds a Right of First Refusal for this Course: 
No
Course Details
Course Number: 
CIS*6540
Course Name: 
Advanced Penetration Testing and Exploit Development
Course Format: 
In-Person
Course Description: 
See Course Calendar
Other Course Description or Assignment Information: 
This course provides practical, hands-on training in ethical hacking and professional penetration testing. Students learn to plan, scope, execute and document a full penetration test, from reconnaissance through exploitation, post-exploitation and reporting, including developing custom exploits against a target platform. The course is delivered with a structured lab every week in the School's isolated cybersecurity lab. It culminates in a team-based, full-chain engagement across Active Directory, web/API and cloud, and an individual timed practical exam in the style of the PJPT certification, followed by a separate professional report-writing period.
Projected Class Enrolment: 
60
Anticipated Duties and Responsibilities
Anticipated Duties and Responsibilities: 
Orientation-Training
Office Hours
Preparation
Student Consultation
Lecturing
Email Correspondence/Monitoring
Conducting Labs/Seminars
TA Coordination Meetings
Invigilating Exams
Grading
Other Duties Described: 
The Sessional Lecturer will be responsible for all aspects of teaching and administering the course, which includes but is not limited to: • Developing a comprehensive course outline consistent with the University and departmental guidelines. • Preparing and delivering engaging lectures. • Developing, administering, and grading assignments, midterms, and final examinations. • Providing timely and constructive feedback to students. • Holding regular office hours for student consultation and support. • Managing the course website on CourseLink (D2L Brightspace), including posting course materials, grades, and announcements. • Ensuring all academic and administrative deadlines are met as per University policy. • Submitting final grades by the Registrar’s deadline.
Qualifications
Required Qualifications
Degree: 
Masters related to field
Other
Prior Teaching Experience: 
Successful teaching related to field at college or university level
Required competence, capability, skill and ability related to course content: 
Demonstrated hands-on industry experience in penetration testing and exploit development, including experience with: - Penetration testing methodology (PTES), scoping and rules of engagement; - Experience configuring and maintaining virtualized penetration testing environments using VirtualBox or VMware; - Writing professional penetration testing reports with remediation recommendations, mapped to MITRE ATT&CK; - OSINT and reconnaissance, including subdomain enumeration and cloud asset discovery; - network scanning and vulnerability assessment (Nmap, Masscan, vulnerability scanners) and CVSS scoring; - exploit development, including buffer overflows, memory-corruption mitigations and modification of public CVE exploits; - Active Directory attacks (Kerberoasting, pass-the-hash, delegation abuse) and BloodHound; - C2 frameworks (e.g., Havoc) and lateral movement; - Phishing and social engineering pretext design; - Web application and API testing (OWASP Top 10, OWASP Web Security Testing Guide, OWASP API Security Top 10, Burp Suite, SSRF, REST/GraphQL, BOLA, insecure deserialization); - Cloud and container security testing (IAM, container escape, CI/CD, Kubernetes) and wireless assessment; - Linux and Windows privilege escalation, including living-off-the-land techniques; - Proficiency with Kali Linux and vulnerable Windows/Linux systems; - Fuzzing (e.g., AFL++); - Prompt injection testing of AI-integrated applications; - Scripting in Python for offensive tooling.
Preferred Qualifications
Degree: 
Masters related to field
Other
Prior Teaching Experience: 
Successful teaching related to field at college or university level.
Many years of successful teaching related to contents of the course.
Specific Preferred competence, capability, skill and ability related to course content: 
- Several years of industry experience in penetration testing, red teaming or security consulting; - Experience designing and maintaining isolated lab environments (vulnerable VM chains, mock Active Directory domains, cloud sandboxes); - Experience designing and running timed, hands-on practical assessments.
Days Required and Wages
Days and Times Required: 
Dates and times have not been finalized, but will be discussed at the interview phase of the process. This is an in-class course, so an interested applicant should assume at least three hours of teaching on campus per week.
Period of the Work Agreement (Start Date and End Date): 
January 7, 2027 to May 7, 2027
Wages (per semester, per full-load): 
minimum $8,838.51 (effective 2025/26)
Other Posting Information
Application Deadline (All postings will automatically expire at 11:59 pm on this day): 
Thursday, November 19, 2026
Posting Email Contact: 
socspost@uoguelph.ca
Hiring Contact Information: 
Christine Harris, Instructional Support Coordinator - teachingsupport@socs.uoguelph.ca

At the University of Guelph, fostering a culture of inclusion is an institutional imperative. The University invites and encourages applications from all qualified individuals, including from groups that are traditionally underrepresented in employment, who may contribute to further diversification of our Institution. For more information, the Office of Diversity and Human Rights (DHR) is a welcoming, safe and confidential one-stop shop for information, training and support on issues relating to diversity and human rights on our campus.
SL work assignments are unionized with CUPE3913 and their terms and conditions of work are covered by the Unit 2 Collective Agreement between the University and CUPE 3913 (email contact: president@cupe3913.on.ca).

All applicants must be eligible to work in Canada specifically at the University of Guelph before applying for an academic work assignment. All successful applicants must perform their work in Ontario and must be able to attend on-campus in-person meetings as required.