Senior Security Engineer

Ardent • Washington, DC

3h • Hybrid

About The Position

At Ardent, employees are committed to solving customer problems while the company is committed to employee well-being, personal goals, and professional development. Ardent fosters a culture of flexibility, innovation, collaboration, and career growth, underpinned by a collective service mindset. The company offers competitive benefits and professional development opportunities. Ardent is seeking a Senior Security Engineer for a hybrid position in Washington DC, requiring up to 3 days per week on-site. This role involves supporting security engineering, SIEM administration, and detection optimization within a Virtual Security Operations Center (vSOC) environment, with a focus on Microsoft Sentinel administration, detection rule development, and log management. The engineer will enhance visibility, improve security posture, and support vulnerability and patch management, requiring deep technical expertise in security engineering, SIEM platforms, and modern enterprise security tools in a secure, compliance-driven environment.

Requirements

• Must be a U.S. Citizen.
• Bachelor’s degree in Cybersecurity, Information Technology, or a related field (or equivalent experience).
• 4+ years of experience in cybersecurity engineering or security operations.
• 2+ years of experience supporting SIEM platforms, preferably Microsoft Sentinel.
• Experience developing detection logic and performing threat detection engineering.
• Proficiency in KQL or similar query languages.
• Experience with log ingestion, data normalization, and security telemetry.
• Experience supporting vulnerability management and patching processes.
• Strong analytical and problem-solving skills.
• Ability to communicate technical concepts to diverse audiences.
• Willingness to undergo and maintain a government-issued background investigation process.

Nice To Haves

• CISSP, GCIA, GCIH, CEH, or equivalent cybersecurity certification.
• Microsoft Sentinel or Microsoft security platform certification.
• Cloud security certification (e.g., AWS or Azure security).
• Experience supporting federal or government security operations environments.
• Experience working in secure or compliance-driven environments.

Responsibilities

• Administer and maintain Microsoft Sentinel, including configuration, performance tuning, and platform optimization.
• Develop, tune, and maintain detection rules and analytics to improve threat detection capabilities.
• Write and optimize KQL queries for threat detection, investigation, and reporting.
• Validate log ingestion and ensure completeness and accuracy of data sources.
• Support onboarding and normalization of log sources across enterprise systems.
• Coordinate vulnerability prioritization and support patch governance efforts.
• Serve as a technical liaison with stakeholders to align security operations with mission needs.
• Support incident response efforts through engineering support and tool optimization.
• Document engineering processes, detection logic, and system configurations.
• Collaborate with SOC analysts and detection engineers to improve detection coverage and response efficiency.

Benefits

• Highly competitive benefits
• Professional development opportunities
• Exceptional culture that embraces flexibility, innovation, collaboration, and career growth.
• Commitment to well-being, personal goals, and professional development of employees.

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Senior
• Number of Employees: 1-10 employees