Detection Engineering Technical Leader

Cisco Systems, Inc.; Denver (CO); Hybrid; USD 150,000 - 191,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Paid holidays

Birthday off

Vacation time

Sick time off

Volunteer days

Job summary

Cisco Systems, Inc. seeks a Security Engineer, Detection Engineering, to secure the Splunk portfolio. You will design and build scalable detection content and partner fluidly with Threat Hunting, SOC, and incident response teams to ensure rapid, accurate security signals.

This hybrid role emphasizes engineering rigor, data-driven detection, and mentorship, shaping how we deploy advanced detection across enterprise environments.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree with 8+ years in security engineering or equivalent.
• Production Splunk Enterprise Security content deployment experience.
• Built detection queries in SPL at scale with high-volume data sources.
• Integrated AI/ML techniques into detection pipelines to reduce false positives.
• Mapped threat intel to detection requirements with measurable criteria.

Responsibilities

• Design scalable detection content for Splunk portfolio.
• Collaborate with Threat Hunting, SOC, and IR teams to improve coverage.
• Mentor peers on detection standards, design patterns, and reviews.
• Lead evolution of security content and detection engineering tooling.

Skills

Security engineering

SPL queries

AI/ML in security

Threat intelligence mapping

Detection pipelines

Education

Bachelor's degree in related field

Master's degree in related field

PhD in related field

Tools

GitHub

GitLab

Bitbucket

Python

Splunk ES

CloudTrail / Azure Monitor

Job description

The application window is expected to close on: 09/20/2026

The successful applicant will be performing work in FedRAMP High or IL-5 environments, and therefore, must be a U.S. Person (i.e., U.S. citizen, U.S. national, lawful permanent resident, asylee, or refugee). This position may also perform work that the U.S. government has specified can only be performed by a U.S. citizen on U.S. soil.

Meet the Team

This role works within Splunk's internal security organization as a member of the Detection Engineering team responsible for securing the Splunk portfolio. The role will partner fluidly with our multi-functional peer teams: Threat Hunting & Intelligence, SOC, Advanced Response, and others, to ensure that Splunk is always prepared for emergent threats. This is a true hybrid role. You will move dynamically between building new scalable detection content, collaborating with incident response organizations, mentoring teammates on detection standards and design patterns, as well designing the future of engineering threat detection solutions at Splunk.

Your Impact

You'll be joining a team of like-minded engineers focused on securing our enterprise and building for the future - together, we engineer scalable detection systems and automation that power 24x7 monitoring operations and rapid response to cybersecurity threats. We sit at the intersection of deep security expertise, strong engineering rigor, and data science: you'll design and build data processing pipelines that efficiently transform high-volume security telemetry into actionable alert signals for downstream agentic and human triage, and we lean hard into AI/ML to stay ahead of adversaries rather than chasing them.

Beyond the technical craft, we drive complex, cross-organizational initiatives with business partners to continuously expand visibility and close detection gaps - working across boundaries to make the whole security program better. We bring our experience to bear through code reviews and technical mentorship, helping elevate detection engineers and security content developers around us, and we hold ourselves to a standard where engineering excellence isn't aspirational... it's how we work.

Minimum Qualifications

• Bachelor's + 8 years of related experience or a Master's degree with 6+ years of related experience, or a PhD + 3 years of related experience as a Security Engineer, Detection Engineer, Security Content Developer, SOC Analyst, or Security Operations professional
• Deployed and maintained Splunk Enterprise Security content in a production SOC environment, including detections, data models, and data management
• Built detection queries in SPL at scale, including risk-based alerting, statistical baselining, and optimized searches across high-volume data sources
• Integrated AI/ML techniques (e.g., anomaly detection, LLM-assisted workflows) into detection engineering pipelines to reduce false positive rates and accelerate content development
• Translated threat intelligence and ATT&CK-mapped adversary behaviors into detection requirements with defined coverage metrics and measurable success criteria

Preferred Qualifications

• Contributed to collaborative development workflows using Git-based platforms (GitHub, GitLab, or Bitbucket), including branch strategy, code review, and CI/CD integration
• Built or tuned security monitoring coverage across AWS, GCP, or Azure, including native logging services (e.g., CloudTrail, GCS audit logs, Azure Monitor) and cloud-native threat detection
• Tracked and responded to emerging threats and attacker techniques through ongoing research, published work, conference participation, or contributions to detection content
• Wrote production Python (or equivalent) with unit tests, code reviews, and version-controlled deployments in an operational security environment
• Applied statistical methods or ML techniques (e.g., threshold baselining, clustering, anomaly scoring) to security data to improve detection signal quality
• Identified and delivered automation that measurably reduced manual toil or cycle time in detection, triage, or response workflows
• Produced technical documentation, runbooks, or presentations tailored to both engineering and non-technical security stakeholders
• Partnered with SOC, IR, threat intel, and product teams to drive multi-functional detection initiatives from requirement to deployment

Why Cisco?

At Cisco, we're revolutionizing how data and infrastructure connect and protect organizations in the AI era - and beyond. We've been innovating fearlessly for 40 years to create solutions that power how humans and technology work together across the physical and digital worlds. These solutions provide customers with unparalleled security, visibility, and insights across the entire digital footprint.

Fueled by the depth and breadth of our technology, we experiment and create meaningful solutions. Add to that our worldwide network of doers and experts, and you'll see that the opportunities to grow and build are limitless. We work as a team, collaborating with empathy to make really big things happen on a global scale. Because our solutions are everywhere, our impact is everywhere.

We are Cisco, and our power starts with you.

Message to applicants applying to work in the U.S. and/or Canada

The starting salary range posted for this position is $150,500.00 to $190,800.00 and reflects the projected salary range for new hires in this position in U.S. and/or Canada locations, not including incentive compensation*, equity, or benefits.

Individual pay is determined by the candidate's hiring location, market conditions, job-related skillset, experience, qualifications, education, certifications, and/or training. The full salary range for certain locations is listed below. For locations not listed below, the recruiter can share more details about compensation for the role in your location during the hiring process.

• 10 paid holidays per full calendar year, plus 1 floating holiday for non-exempt employees
• 1 paid day off for employee's birthday, paid year-end holiday shutdown, and 4 paid days off for personal wellness determined by Cisco
• Non‑exempt employees** receive 16 days of paid vacation time per full calendar year, accrued at rate of 4.92 hours per pay period for full-time employees
• Exempt employees participate in Cisco's flexible vacation time off program, which has no defined limit on how much vacation time eligible employees may use (subject to availability and some business limitations)
• 80 hours of sick time off provided on hire date and each January 1st thereafter, and up to 80 hours of unused sick time carried forward from one calendar year to the next
• Additional paid time away may be requested to deal with critical or emergency issues for family members
• Optional 10 paid days per full calendar year to volunteer

For non-sales roles, employees are also eligible to earn annual bonuses subject to Cisco's policies.

• .75% of incentive target for each 1% of revenue attainment up to 50% of quota;
• 1.5% of incentive target for each 1% of attainment between 50% and 75%;
• 1% of incentive target for each 1% of attainment between 75% and 100%; and
• Once performance exceeds 100% attainment, incentive rates are at or above 1% for each 1% of attainment with no cap on incentive compensation.

For non-quota-based sales performance elements such as strategic sales objectives, Cisco may pay 0% up to 125% of target. Cisco sales plans do not have a minimum threshold of performance for sales incentive compensation to be paid.

The applicable full salary ranges for this position, by specific state, are listed below:

New York City Metro Area:

$180,300.00 - $263,000.00

Non-Metro New York state & Washington state:

$160,700.00 - $234,100.00

* For quota-based sales roles on Cisco's sales plan, the ranges provided in this posting include base pay and sales target incentive compensation combined.

** Employees in Illinois, whether exempt or non-exempt, will participate in a unique time off program to meet local requirements.