Staff Detection & Response Engineer

Okta, Inc.; Toronto; On-site; CAD 141,000 - 211,000; Full time

Job summary

Join a forward-thinking company as a Staff Engineer in Detection and Response, where you will play a crucial role in safeguarding digital identities. This position involves developing advanced security detections, automating incident response, and collaborating with cross-functional teams to enhance Okta's defenses. If you have a passion for security and a knack for mentoring others, this is an exciting opportunity to make a significant impact in a dynamic work environment that values diversity and innovation. Embrace the challenge and help shape the future of identity security!

Benefits

Health Insurance

Dental Insurance

Vision Insurance

RRSP with Match

Telemedicine

Paid Leave

Parental Leave

Equity Options

Flexible Work Environment

Social Impact Initiatives

Qualifications

• Experience in security incident response and automation.
• Strong background in detection engineering and forensic analysis.

Responsibilities

• Develop security detections and refine incident response processes.
• Investigate security incidents and perform forensic analysis.

Skills

Incident Response

Security Automation

Detection Engineering

Forensic Analysis

Mentoring

Collaboration

Education

Equivalent experience in computing environments

Tools

Security Tools

APIs

Custom Scripts

Job description

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 Detection and Response Engineer

We safeguard Okta from threats and vulnerabilities that have the potential to disrupt our business or degrade our customers’ trust in us.

In addition to driving security in our enterprise environment and Okta service, the Security team is deeply entrenched in the Okta business. The team contributes to product roadmaps, promoting trust, research and other strategic aspects of Okta’s 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

Okta is seeking an experienced Staff Engineer, Detection and Response to take on a key role as a senior technical expert within Okta’s Cyber Defense team, reporting to the Senior Manager of Defensive Cyber Operations (Americas). You will work closely with engineers and cross-functional teams to improve security operations, develop threat detection mechanisms, and drive incident response automation. You will serve as a technical leader, providing hands-on expertise and mentoring for other engineers within the team.

Core Responsibilities

Detection Engineering

• Develop and refine security detections across Okta’s infrastructure and applications ensuring optimal coverage across the organization.
• Create high-fidelity alerts that balance security visibility with operational efficiency.
• Work with detection & response engineers to tune detections, reduce false positives, and enhance response workflows.

Incident Response & Forensics

• Investigate and respond to security incidents, working to quickly contain and remediate threats.
• Take part in the DCO watch roster triaging alerts escalated via automated processes, internal reports, and third-party notifications.
• Perform forensic analysis of security events, logs, and endpoints to determine root causes.
• Develop and improve response playbooks and automation to streamline incident handling.

Security Automation & Engineering

• Build automation to improve detection and response workflows, reducing manual effort.
• Integrate security tools and APIs for enhanced threat detection and data correlation.
• Develop custom scripts and tooling to improve team efficiency and incident response capabilities.

Collaboration & Knowledge Sharing

• Work closely with security engineers, threat intelligence teams, and platform engineering teams to ensure a holistic security approach.
• Mentor and coach other engineers, providing technical guidance and support.
• Stay up to date with the latest attack techniques and security trends to continuously improve Okta’s defenses.

What does it take?

You’re a team player. You have great communications skills and a thirst for knowledge. You’re curious about systems and how they interact, knowing that to properly defend a system you must first understand how it works. You enjoy automating tasks and if you can’t find a tool for the job you create one. You’re calm under pressure and have a good internal compass for taking calculated risks.

If you don’t have a degree, you have equivalent experience that’s given you the foundational knowledge to understand complex computing environments.

You’re a leader. People want to work with you. You know what it takes to build a world-class defensive cyber capability and you’re passionate about helping make ours stronger. Your experience probably includes:

• Leading, or contributing to, technology focused teams large or small.
• Mentoring staff and providing development opportunities to build high performing teams.
• Operating as, or providing support to, the incident commander or technical lead during cyber security incidents.
• Developing advanced detection capabilities, working with detection-as-code, and automating the triage and response of alerts they generate.

Ideally you also have experience in several of the following areas:

• Researching the tactics, techniques and procedures of sophisticated adversaries and hunting for evidence of them within an enterprise environment.
• Developing detection and response validation techniques and automating tests to enable continuous assurance of defensive cyber capabilities.
• Analysing critical systems to understand both how to break them and defend them against attack.
• Working collaboratively within product and/or enterprise project teams, assisting to deliver large and complex technology solutions.

Salary and Benefits

The annual base salary range for this position for candidates located in Canada is between: $141,000 — $211,000 CAD. 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.

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

• Amazing Benefits
• Making Social Impact
• Fostering Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Belonging 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.

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.