Sr. Security Research Engineer

Proofpoint•Washington, DC

15d•Remote

About The Position

As a Sr. Security Research Engineer on Proofpoint’s Threat Research team, you’ll be part of a highly-collaborative, industry-leading team focused on tracking threat actors and their associated tactics, techniques, and procedures. This role is designed to enable research and analysis activities by creating tooling to enhance or automate workflows and to facilitate tracking and data analysis processes. If desired, this role will also have the opportunity to undertake research in pursuit of the Threat Research program’s mission to find and remediate malicious activity in Proofpoint datasets. This role has a direct impact on the efficacy of Proofpoint products, the quality of Proofpoint’s intelligence, and the protection of Proofpoint customers. Our priority is finding talented individuals who fit our mission and culture – If you believe your skills align with the requirements but feel that the ‘Senior’ title may not reflect your experience level, we still encourage you to apply. We’re open to discussing the right fit

Requirements

Passion for threat research and a well-rounded understanding of the threat landscape
Ability to understand the threat researcher's needs, transform them into consistent & efficient system requirements and implement them
Experience developing tooling in a variety of programming languages, but predominantly Python
Experience integrating existing tooling into comprehensive systems which are deployable to a distributed team (devOps, architecture)
Experience working with large datasets and associated tools and libraries, such as relational databases, AWS, Splunk, Pandas, Jupyter, etc.
Self-directed and accountable
Outstanding communication skills and the ability to present complex technical topics to a variety of internal stakeholders

Nice To Haves

Understanding of malware analysis fundamentals, for example interpreting the results of sandbox analysis
Experience with LLM and agent/agentic framework development and support
Prior experience tracking threat actors and/or malware families
Experience performing the above in a fully remote environment

Responsibilities

Stay abreast of a constantly evolving threat landscape and modern tech stacks needed to support research
Work in partnership with threat researchers to design and implement tools and systems which enable their ability to track, contextualize, and report on malicious activity
Liaison with other engineering units within Proofpoint to ensure stakeholder requirements are communicated and as a consultant to help those units understand the needs of a security-focused end-user constituency
Work effectively as part of a remote team using chat, video chat, and conference calls