Security Engineer

Wilson Sonsini•Washington, DC

2d•$105,400 - $158,125

About The Position

The Security Engineer, under the direction of the Director, Security Engineering and Operations, owns the day-to-day execution of the firm’s vulnerability management program and administers its privileged access management (PAM) platform. This hands-on role focuses on finding, prioritizing, reporting on, and driving remediation of vulnerabilities across endpoints, servers, network, cloud, and SaaS environments. It also ensures administrative and privileged credentials are vaulted, rotated, monitored, and granted on a least-privilege, just-in-time basis. The successful candidate can assess technical vulnerability details and translate findings into clear priorities for system owners, hold remediation to defined SLAs, and produce reporting that IT leadership and clients can act on. The primary location is Palo Alto, though other locations may be listed. The anticipated annual base pay is $116,875–$158,125 in Palo Alto, New York, and San Francisco, and $105,400–$142,600 in Austin, Boston, Boulder, Century City, Delaware, Los Angeles, Salt Lake City, San Diego, Seattle, Washington, D.C., and other locations. Compensation may include a discretionary year-end merit bonus based on performance. The firm offers a competitive salary and benefits package.

Requirements

Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Information Security, or a related technical field, or equivalent practical experience.
At least 3 years of hands-on information security or systems administration experience in an enterprise environment.
Working knowledge of an enterprise vulnerability scanning platform, including agent deployment, asset tagging, and report and dashboard building.
Ability to read CVE and vendor advisory details, assess real-world exploitability, and explain risk clearly to engineers and non-technical stakeholders.
Familiarity with NIST CSF, CIS Controls, and ISO 27001, and with patch and remediation SLA expectations typical of regulated or client-driven environments.
Strong organizational skills and follow-through, including the ability to track numerous open items to closure and hold others accountable diplomatically and persistently.
Clear written and verbal communication skills, including the ability to produce concise reports and status updates that leadership can act on without a security background.

Nice To Haves

Relevant security or vendor platform certifications.
Experience in a law firm or other professional services environment.
Comfort responding to client security requirements, audits, and outside counsel guidelines.

Responsibilities

Administer and tune the vulnerability scanning platform, maintaining asset coverage, authenticated scan credentials, scan schedules, and agent health across workstations, servers, network devices, and cloud workloads.
Triage and prioritize findings using risk-based criteria, including CVSS, exploit availability, asset criticality, and internet exposure, and communicate remediation priorities.
Produce recurring vulnerability dashboards and metrics for IT and security leadership, including open findings by severity and age, SLA compliance, mean time to remediate, and repeat and overdue findings.
Supply vulnerability evidence for client security questionnaires, audits, and assessments.
Drive remediation end to end by assigning findings to system owners, tracking them to closure against defined SLAs, validating fixes through rescans, and escalating stalled items.
Coordinate with infrastructure, desktop, and application teams on routine patch cycles and emergency patching for actively exploited vulnerabilities.
Coordinate with the GRC team on risk acceptance and exceptions for findings that cannot be remediated on schedule, documenting business justification, compensating controls, and expiration dates and re-reviewing exceptions before they lapse.
Administer the PAM platform, including onboarding accounts and systems to the vault, configuring credential rotation, session recording, and approval workflows, and maintaining platform health and integrations.
Enforce least-privilege and just-in-time access for administrative accounts, eliminating standing privileged access and shared credentials wherever possible.
Conduct periodic privileged account discovery and access reviews, identify orphaned, dormant, over-privileged, and unmanaged service accounts, and work with owners to remediate them.
Monitor privileged session activity and PAM alerts and investigate anomalies.
Maintain documentation with the GRC team, including standards, SLAs, onboarding procedures, and reporting definitions.
Perform related duties as assigned by the supervisor.
Maintain compliance with company policies and procedures.