Security Engineer (Threat Response, Sophos Security Team, IDR)

Sophos; Ottawa; Hybrid; CAD 110,000 - 170,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Remote-first model

Hybrid options

Flexible start times

Wellbeing program

Learning resources

EAP

Job summary

Sophos is seeking an experienced security engineer to independently detect, investigate and respond to cyber threats across Sophos and its products. You will engineer detections and automation, own complex investigations, and coordinate responses across IDR, engineering and product teams.

You will perform DFIR and endpoint forensics, write robust detections and playbooks, and build scalable automation to drive efficiency. The role emphasizes safe, observable workflows and AI-enabled tooling.

Qualifications

• Hands-on DFIR, endpoint and firewall forensics.
• Experience leading investigations through incident lifecycles.
• Ability to design and implement automated detections and playbooks.
• Familiarity with Python or similar languages and API integration.
• Comfort with SQL-based data analysis and telemetry.
• Experience with GitHub teamwork and code reviews.

Responsibilities

• Independently detect, investigate and respond to cyber threats across Sophos and its products.
• Engineer detections, automations, reusable skills and workflows at scale.
• Own complex investigations from triage to containment and lessons learned.
• Coordinate response across IDR, engineering, product and business teams.
• Perform DFIR and endpoint forensics including log, network and malware analysis.
• Write and improve detections, playbooks and preventions using incident evidence.
• Build production-grade automation to reduce repetitive work and raise analytic throughput.
• Design reusable AI-enabled agent workflows across approved platforms.

Skills

DFIR

Incident response

Threat hunting

Python

SQL

Observability

Tools

GitHub

Git

Python

SQL

CI/CD

Job description

• Independently detect, investigate and respond to cyber threats across Sophos and its products, while engineering the detections, automations, reusable skills and agentic workflows that scale Internal Detection and Response
• The role combines incident response judgement with security engineering and the safe, measurable and observable use of AI
• Own complex investigations across the incident lifecycle, from triage and evidence collection through containment, recovery and lessons learned
• Act as a trusted front door for security issues, coordinating response across IDR, engineering, product and business teams
• Perform DFIR and endpoint forensics, including log, network and packet analysis, malware analysis and firewall investigation where applicable
• Write and improve detections, playbooks, orchestrations and preventions using evidence from incidents and threat hunting
• Build production-quality automation that removes repetitive work, improves consistency and enables analysts to operate at a higher layer
• Design model-agnostic, reusable skills and workflows that run across approved AI and agent platforms rather than depending on one model
• Use Claude, Codex, Copilot and future approved tooling to accelerate investigations, coding, testing, documentation and detection engineering
• Contribute through GitHub: create branches, raise and review pull requests, write tests, respond to feedback and support controlled deployment
• Instrument agentic workflows with logs, traces, metrics, evaluation results and failure signals so behaviour and outcomes are observable
• Apply safe harness design, least privilege, scoped tool access, approval gates, evidence validation, rollback and human review for consequential actions
• Communicate incidents, risks, decisions and technical outcomes clearly to engineering and leadership audiences

Benefits

• We encourage teams to get together in person periodically to help facilitate teamwork
• Remote-first working model & hybrid options
• Flexible start and end times for many roles
• Leadership development program
• Access to LinkedIn Learning
• Global internal coaching program (Coach Match)
• Periodic Sophos wellness days off for all Sophos to help employees relax and recharge
• Global wellbeing program, which offers a range of wellbeing resources, including Sophos Wellbeing Webinars, Stress Management Toolkits, and Developing Resilience Courses
• Free Employee Assistance Program (EAP) for confidential advice and counseling on a wide range of work and personal issues
• Free annual subscription to the Calm app
• Paid parental leave, caregiver leave & bereavement/compassion leave available
• We host some unforgettable social experiences for our global teams including our music festival SOPH-Fest, go-karting, Sophmudder, and incredible holiday parties!
• Our annual global fitness challenge, SOPH-Fit, sees thousands of employees taking part in our virtual global race around the world
• Each quarter, we celebrate our exceptional global team by running the Sophos Values Awards, which recognizes and rewards employees who embody the Sophos values and who we are as a company
• Health care benefits available worldwide

• Understanding of agent architecture, tool use, skill-based design, model portability and AI or automation safety controls
• Hands-on familiarity with Claude, Codex or comparable coding agents, including context design, task decomposition and validation of generated output
• Ability to design and write evals for agentic workflows and skills, covering task success, output quality, safety, regressions and common failure modes
• Clear written and verbal communication, sound opsec judgement and the ability to work effectively in a globally coordinated environment
• Practical capability in DFIR, endpoint and firewall forensics, threat hunting, detection engineering and analysis of unstructured telemetry
• Ability to write reliable automation in Python or a comparable language, work with APIs and query data using SQL
• Working knowledge of Git and GitHub engineering practices, including pull requests, code review, testing and CI/CD concepts
• Ability to design observability for automated work and use telemetry to troubleshoot, measure quality and improve reliability
• Strong enterprise incident response experience across endpoint, identity, cloud, network and product-focused investigations
• At Sophos, we believe in the power of diverse perspectives to fuel innovation.

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