Staff Engineer - Security

realestate.com.au Pty Ltd; Melbourne; Hybrid; AUD 180,000 - 260,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Hybrid work

Flexible leave

Parental leave

Volunteering leave

Community initiatives

Hackdays

Job summary

REA Group seeks a Staff Engineer - Security to shape and build enterprise security capabilities across SaaS, endpoints and AI. The role is based in Melbourne, Brisbane, Sydney or Adelaide with flexible options.

You will provide deep technical leadership to design, implement and scale secure platforms, mentor engineers and drive risk-based remediation across REA's technology stack.

Qualifications

• Extensive experience in security engineering or closely related roles within modern cloud-based engineering environments (typically 8+ years in relevant roles).
• Demonstrated track record as a senior technical leader influencing cross-team security outcomes at scale.
• Proven experience collaborating with software, platform and data engineering teams to embed security into design and delivery.

Responsibilities

• Provide hands-on technical leadership across complex security initiatives, guiding design, implementation and operation of secure solutions.
• Partner with Enterprise Technology to embed appropriate security controls into employee-facing technology.
• Lead the identification, assessment and prioritisation of security risks in key technologies, and drive remediation strategies.

Skills

Security engineering

Technical leadership

Identity management

Tools

Terraform

CI/CD

SIEM

EDR

Job description

Staff Engineer - Security Shape and build enterprise security capabilities across SaaS, endpoints and workforce AI. Tackle emerging security challenges and help develop solutions that set a high bar for the industry. Permanent opportunity based in Melbourne, Brisbane, Sydney or Adelaide. Perth may be considered for the right candidate. We're REA With bold and ambitious goals, REA Group is changing the way the world experiences property. No matter where you’re at on your property journey, we’re here to help with every step, whether that’s finding or financing your next home. Our people are the key to our success. At the heart of everything we do is a thriving culture centred around high performance and care. We are purpose-driven and collaborative, which drives innovation and our ability to make a real impact. We’re proud to have been named one of Australia’s Best Workplaces four times since 2021, including third place in 2025, as well as Best Workplace for Women in 2023 and Best Workplace in Technology in 2024 and 2025. These accolades are a testament to every person who helps make REA a great place to work.

Which team is this in

The Enterprise Security team exists to secure the technology our staff use to get their jobs done. This includes our identity infrastructure as well as the hardware, networks and software that we REA staff and contractors work with.

The Staff Engineer - Security provides deep technical leadership to design, build and continuously improve REA's security infrastructure as well as our endpoints, network and software platforms, enabling teams to deliver quickly and safely at scale.

Day to day of the job

• Provide hands-on technical leadership across complex security initiatives, guiding design, implementation and operation of secure solutions.
• Partner with Enterprise Technology to embed appropraite security controls into our employee-facing technology.
• Champion information protection initiatives within our Enterprise Technology
• Lead the identification, assessment and prioritisation of security risks in key technologies, and drive pragmatic remediation strategies.
• Own and improve core Enterprise security platforms and controls (e.g. identity, single sign on, data protection & endpoint management).
• Develop frameworks and tooling for managing the security of SaaS platforms.
• Manage our authentication controls to ensure they remain phishing-resistant and user friendly.
• Continue to help ensure that users have appropriate levels of access, including through the deployment and management of just-in-time and time-bound privileged access
• Mentor and coach security and software engineers, lifting security engineering capability across the broader engineering community.
• Collaborate with Security Operations, Security GRCand Technology leadership to align security controls with business priorities and risk appetite.
• Influence technology roadmaps so that security, resilience and privacy considerations are built into long-term planning and investment decisions.
• Familiarity with the security risks introduced by AI and LLM-enabled tools in enterprise environments, such as data leakage and unsafe integrations.
• Track emerging threats, technologies and industry practices and translate them into actionable improvements to REA's security posture.

Who we’re looking for

• Extensive experience in security engineering or closely related roles within modern cloud-based engineering environments (typically 8+ years in relevant roles).
• Demonstrated track record as a senior technical leader or Staff/Principal-level engineer influencing cross-team security outcomes at scale.
• Proven experience collaborating with software, platform and data engineering teams to embed security into design and delivery.
• Experience leading or significantly contributing to the technical response for complex security incidents or major vulnerabilities.
• Expert-level experience in enterprise security architecture and engineering.
• Strong experience with identity management concepts and technologies
• Hands-on experience with common security tooling across detection and response (SIEM), endpoint security configuration (EDR, containers, secure configuration), SaaS security configuration, and access and credential management (secrets management, privileged access, identity tooling).
• Skilled with infrastructure-as-code (e.g., Terraform), automation, and CI/CD practices and observability, with a willingness to build and maintain security integrations within cloud-native environments (AWS, GCP, Azure).
• Solid understanding of security risk management and industry frameworks/standards relevant to REA (e.g. NIST CSF, ISO 27001 and PCI-DSS).

The REA experience

The physical, mental, emotional and financial health of our people is something we’ll never stop caring about. This is a place to learn and grow.

• A hybrid and flexible approach to working.
• Flexible leave options, including birthday leave and the option to purchase additional leave.
• Flexible parental leave for primary and secondary carers.
• Our Because We Care program, offering volunteering leave, community grants and matched payroll giving.
• Our Community Café donates 100% of its revenue to charity.
• Hackdays, so you can bring your big ideas to life.

Our commitment to Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion We are committed to providing a working environment that embraces and values diversity, equity and inclusion.

We are an Australian-based digital media company with a passion for real estate. Our leading brand is Australia’s biggest property resource, realestate.com.au. We also operate the number one commercial property site, realcommercial.com.au, and have businesses that help property developers and other brands advertise with us. Whilst we live in Australia, we’ve also got ventures in Asia and North America, and have the vision of expanding our footprint further. Everything we do is driven by our purpose to ‘change the way the world experiences property’ – from product innovation to our international investments.