Staff Adversarial Engineer

Okta; Canada; Remote; CAD 141,000 - 211,000; Full time

Job summary

Join a forward-thinking company as a Staff Adversarial Engineer, where you will play a crucial role in enhancing security measures and protecting customer identities. This position involves simulating sophisticated threat scenarios and collaborating with diverse teams to strengthen defenses against evolving cyber threats. With a focus on proactive risk assessment and innovative problem-solving, you will contribute to a dynamic work environment that values unique perspectives and continuous learning. If you have a passion for cybersecurity and a drive to make a significant impact, this role offers an exciting opportunity to advance your career while helping to secure the digital landscape.

Benefits

Health Insurance

Dental Insurance

Vision Insurance

RRSP with Match

Healthcare Spending

Telemedicine

Paid Leave

Parental Leave

Qualifications

• Experience in adversarial simulation and red/purple teaming.
• Strong understanding of attack techniques and threat actor methodologies.

Responsibilities

• Collaborate with Cyber Defense teams to simulate threat scenarios.
• Conduct adversarial research to identify potential risks.

Skills

Cybersecurity

Adversary Simulation

Red Teaming

Security Research

Problem Solving

Communication Skills

Education

Relevant Certifications (OSCP, OSEP, etc.)

Job description

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Get to know Okta

Okta is The World’s Identity Company. We free everyone to safely use any technology—anywhere, on any device or app. Our Workforce and Customer Identity Clouds enable secure yet flexible access, authentication, and automation that transforms how people move through the digital world, putting Identity at the heart of business security and growth.

Get to know Okta

Okta is The World’s Identity Company. We free everyone to safely use any technology—anywhere, on any device or app. Our Workforce and Customer Identity Clouds enable secure yet flexible access, authentication, and automation that transforms how people move through the digital world, putting Identity at the heart of business security and growth.

At Okta, we celebrate a variety of perspectives and experiences. We are not looking for someone who checks every single box - we’re looking for lifelong learners and people who can make us better with their unique experiences.

Join our team! We’re building a world where Identity belongs to you.

Staff Adversarial Engineer

The Okta Security team’s mission is to strengthen Okta’s position as the leading Identity-as-a-Service solution through identifying and resolving risks to our employees, products, and most importantly, our customers. With the ever-increasing pace of cloud application adoption, companies are struggling to find ways to accurately assess risk and act at the speed of their business.

In addition to driving security in our Corporate environment and the Okta service, the Security team is deeply entrenched in the Okta business. As such, we contribute to product roadmaps, branding, research and other strategic aspects of our operations. We work across multiple functions, business partners and the research community. We are an engineering-focused team that seeks to stay on the cutting edge of security technology and the threat landscape.

The Role

The Adversarial Engineering and Operations team is integral to Cyber Defense’s intelligence-led strategy to safeguard Okta’s infrastructure, products and customers. We specialize in planning and executing adversarial operations alongside Defensive Cyber Operations, simulating sophisticated threat actors and scenarios to provide critical insights into Cyber Defense’s ability to detect and respond to threats.

We’re seeking a highly skilled operator to join our global team. In this role, you’ll be responsible for planning, executing, and delivering adversarial operations and research engagements. You’ll work directly with Defensive Cyber Operations to simulate realistic threat scenarios, analyze security gaps, and uncover areas where we can strengthen our detection and response capabilities.

This is not a penetration testing or traditional red team role. While you may identify vulnerabilities or weaknesses in our infrastructure, the primary purpose of this role is to provide actionable insights and enhance our overall ability to detect and respond to sophisticated threats.

Core Responsibilities:

• Collaborate Across Cyber Defense: Work closely with various teams within Cyber Defense, including Defensive Cyber Operations, to simulate real-world threat scenarios.
• Simulate and Document Attacker Behavior: Replicate sophisticated adversary tactics to enhance threat detection and response strategies, ensuring real-world scenarios are accurately represented.
• Conduct Adversarial Research: Perform in-depth research on Okta’s products and platforms from an adversarial perspective to identify potential avenues of exploitation, abuse, and overlooked attack vectors.
• Provide Actionable Insights: Translate adversarial operations and research into actionable recommendations that empower teams to implement proactive detection strategies and improve incident response workflows.
• Partner Across Teams: Collaborate with the broader security and engineering teams to share findings, highlight security gaps, and drive improvements.
• Document and Present Findings: Clearly document research, adversarial operations, and results, presenting actionable insights to stakeholders at all levels.
• Contribute to Program Development: Drive the continuous improvement of the Adversarial Engineering and Operations program by developing internal tools, methodologies, and processes that enhance our approach and capabilities.
  
  

What does it take?

You’re a team player with excellent communication skills and a deep curiosity for understanding complex systems. You know that to defend a system effectively, you must first understand how it works. You enjoy testing assumptions, uncovering hidden risks, and making your own life harder in the process.

You come from a strong offensive security background, with experience in red or purple team roles. However, you're now looking for an opportunity to work more closely with defensive teams, using your skills to help build stronger, proactive defenses. You’re well-versed in attacker techniques, and can articulate how they work and how they can be detected and investigated. You don’t just identify problems — you’re motivated to partner with others across teams to drive solutions.

You have experience working with remote teams and can remain self-motivated and focused, contributing effectively outside of a traditional office environment.

Skills And Experience

• Proven experience in cybersecurity and/or related fields, with hands-on expertise in adversary simulation, red/purple teaming, or security research.
• Proven experience simulating attacker behavior in SaaS applications, user endpoints, and cloud environments, including containerized infrastructure.
• Strong understanding of cybersecurity principles, attack techniques, and threat actor methodologies.
• Analytical mindset, with excellent problem-solving skills to uncover potential risks and improve detection and response.
• Outstanding communication and collaboration skills, with the ability to work effectively across teams and geographies.
• Relevant certifications are a plus (OSCP, OSEP, OSMR, GXPN, GDAT, etc)
  
  

Below is the annual salary range for candidates located in Canada. Your actual salary will depend on factors such as your skills, qualifications, and experience. In addition, Okta offers equity (where applicable), bonus, and benefits, including health, dental, and vision insurance, RRSP with a match, healthcare spending, telemedicine, and paid leave (including PTO and parental leave) in accordance with our applicable plans and policies. To learn more about our Total Rewards program, please visit: https://rewards.okta.com/can.

The annual base salary range for this position for candidates located in Canada is between:

$141,000—$211,000 CAD

What you can look forward to as a Full-Time Okta employee!

• Amazing Benefits
• Making Social Impact
• Developing Talent and Fostering Connection + Community at Okta
  
  

Okta cultivates a dynamic work environment, providing the best tools, technology and benefits to empower our employees to work productively in a setting that best and uniquely suits their needs. Each organization is unique in the degree of flexibility and mobility in which they work so that all employees are enabled to be their most creative and successful versions of themselves, regardless of where they live. Find your place at Okta today! https://www.okta.com/company/careers/.

Some roles may require travel to one of our office locations for in-person onboarding.

Okta is an Equal Opportunity Employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, ancestry, marital status, age, physical or mental disability, or status as a protected veteran. We also consider for employment qualified applicants with arrest and convictions records, consistent with applicable laws.

If reasonable accommodation is needed to complete any part of the job application, interview process, or onboarding please use this Form to request an accommodation.

Okta is committed to complying with applicable data privacy and security laws and regulations. For more information, please see our Privacy Policy at https://www.okta.com/privacy-policy/.

Seniority level

• Seniority level

  Not Applicable

Employment type

• Employment type

  Full-time

Job function

• Job function

  Engineering and Information Technology

• Industries

  Computer and Network Security, Software Development, and IT Services and IT Consulting

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