Partner 20, Senior Incident Response Engineer

a16z•San Francisco, CA

7h•$243,000 - $284,000•Hybrid

About The Position

We're hiring a Senior Incident Response Engineer to anchor a16z's detection and response work. You'll own incident triage and response across AWS and GCP, write the detections that catch real threats in our SIEM, and run point when something serious happens. The threats here are not theoretical. We see capital call wire fraud attempts, vishing campaigns, social engineering against IT and partners, and occasionally more sophisticated actors (nation-state groups, organized criminal operations) who specifically target venture capital firms. Your work protects the firm, our LPs, and our portfolio companies. You'll work day to day with the Head of Cybersecurity, Security Engineering, IT, and Legal. This role requires an in-office presence 2 days a week in our San Francisco, CA office.

Requirements

5+ years of incident response experience or equivalent demonstrated impact, with cloud IR depth across both AWS and GCP
Experience leading live incidents end to end — triage, containment, eradication, forensic investigation, and post-mortem — across cloud, SaaS, identity, and endpoint surfaces
Experience running proactive, hypothesis-driven threat hunts using current TTPs and intel
Hands-on detection authoring in modern SIEM platforms (Sigma, KQL, or equivalent) and experience working with detection-as-code
Experience building detection frameworks and contributing to SIEM architecture decisions
Strong Python scripting. This is a role where you build automation, not one where you only operate someone else's
Demonstrated capability across modern security tooling categories (cloud telemetry, EDR, SOAR, SIEM). We weight transferable capability over experience with any specific product
Experience defending against nation-state threat actors or organized criminal groups
Working knowledge of AI/agent systems and their security implications, particularly in SOC workflows
Experience translating the technical reality of an incident (blast radius, containment status, disclosure decisions) into language non-technical stakeholders can act on.
Low ego, high empathy, and the capacity to collaborate effectively with diverse teams

Nice To Haves

GCIH or equivalent IR certification preferred
Comfortable in a fast-moving environment where security is expected to enable the business

Responsibilities

Run incidents end to end, from first alert to post-mortem, across cloud and SaaS environments
Write the detections that catch real threats, with a strong bias toward signal over noise and broad MITRE ATT&CK coverage
Help shape the next generation of our SOC, including AI agent integration into triage and response workflows
Partner across the firm during incidents: investing teams, Legal, Compliance, Finance, IT, and firm leadership all get pulled in, and this role keeps every audience aligned under pressure
Drive post-mortems that lead to operational change, not process for its own sake
Work against real adversaries, including nation-state groups, organized criminal operations, and threat actors who specifically target venture capital firms