Security Engineer

Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati•Palo Alto, CA

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 finds, prioritizes, reports on, and drives remediation of vulnerabilities across endpoint, server, 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 role requires translating technical vulnerability findings into clear priorities for system owners, holding remediation to defined service-level agreements (SLAs), and producing reporting that IT leadership and clients can act on. The Security Engineer works with infrastructure, desktop, application, and GRC teams to manage remediation, exceptions, access controls, documentation, and reporting.

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 clearly explain risk to engineers and non-technical stakeholders.
Familiarity with client- and auditor-referenced frameworks and standards such as 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 to track many open items to closure and diplomatically and persistently hold others accountable.
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.
Communicate vulnerability priorities to relevant stakeholders.
Produce recurring vulnerability dashboards and metrics, 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 closure against SLAs, validating fixes through rescans, and escalating stalled items.
Coordinate routine patch cycles and emergency patching for actively exploited vulnerabilities with infrastructure, desktop, and application teams.
Coordinate with the GRC team on risk acceptance and exceptions, documenting business justification, compensating controls, and expiration dates, and reviewing exceptions before they lapse.
Administer the firm’s 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, identifying orphaned, dormant, over-privileged, and unmanaged service accounts and working 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 assigned by the supervisor.
Maintain compliance with company policies and procedures.