Expert Detection and Response Engineer

Activision; Santa Monica (CA); On-site; USD 124,000 - 229,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Medical insurance

Dental and vision insurance

Life and AD&D insurance

Disability insurance

401(k) with company match

Tuition reimbursement

Charitable donation matching

Paid holidays and vacation

Sick time and floating holidays

Bereavement leaves

Parental leave

Mental health programs

Wellbeing programs

Fitness programs

Free and discounted games

Relocation assistance

Job summary

Activision is seeking an Expert Detection and Response Engineer to protect players, studios, platforms, and enterprise environments from advanced cyber threats. This highly hands-on role focuses on real-world attacker behavior, rapid analysis, and effective containment.

The position is part of the Global Security Operations organization and involves on-call rotation, collaboration with engineering teams, and occasional travel to support studios or on-site incident response.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in computer science, information security, or equivalent with 10+ years of security experience.
• Hands-on threat detection, security operations, and incident response across full lifecycle.
• Strong understanding of modern threat landscape, attacker TTPs.
• Experience in log analysis, correlation, and investigative triage.
• Excellent written and verbal communication; ability to work independently and with stakeholders.
• Willingness to participate in on-call rotation.

Responsibilities

• Detect, investigate, and respond to security incidents across cloud, corporate, and production environments.
• Monitor telemetry and logs to identify anomalies and threats.
• Perform alert triage, investigation, and forensic analysis through incident lifecycle.
• Develop and tune detections within SIEM and EDR.
• Automate workflows with SOAR, scripting, and analytics.
• Design AI-assisted triage and enrichment workflows.
• Contribute to TDIR procedures, playbooks, and metrics.
• Collaborate with engineering teams and vendors during investigations.
• Participate in on-call rotation and provide off-hours support.
• Communicate findings to technical teams and leadership.
• Travel up to 10% as needed.

Skills

Threat detection

Incident response

Security operations

Forensics

Scripting (Python/PowerShell/KQL)

Communication

Independent work

On-call readiness

Education

Bachelor’s degree in computer science, Information Security, or equivalent practical experience

Tools

SIEM

EDR

SOAR

Python

PowerShell

KQL

Job description

Find your next opportunity with Activision

Activision is seeking an Expert Detection and Response Engineer to help protect our players, studios, platforms, and enterprise environments from advanced cyber threats. As part of our Global Security Operations organization, this role is responsible for actively identifying, investigating, and responding to security threats. This role is highly hands‑on and focuses on real-world attacker behavior, rapid analysis, and effective containment.

Job Title

Expert Detection and Response Engineer

Requisition ID

R028213

Responsibilities

• Detect, investigate, and respond to security incidents across cloud, corporate, and production environments as a hands‑on member of the TDIR team.
• Monitor and analyze security telemetry and audit logs to identify anomalous activity, unauthorized access, and emerging threats, including targeted attacks and advanced adversaries.
• Perform alert triage, in‑depth investigation, and forensic analysis across the full incident lifecycle, from identification through containment, remediation, and post‑incident review.
• Execute endpoint, identity, cloud, and malware investigations, including timeline reconstruction, indicator extraction, and root cause analysis.
• Develop, refine, and tune threat detections within the SIEM based on real‑world attacker behavior and investigation findings.
• Enhance investigation and response efficiency through automation, SOAR workflows, scripting, and advanced analytics.
• Design, build, or operate AI/LLM‑assisted triage and enrichment workflows (e.g., agentic pipelines integrated with case management platforms) to accelerate investigation and reduce analyst toil.
• Evaluate and harden AI‑assisted security tooling against adversarial input, including prompt injection and verdict‑poisoning risks introduced via analyzed artifacts, applying schema‑constrained or otherwise bounded output design rather than relying solely on input‑side filtering.
• Contribute to TDIR procedures, playbooks, runbooks, documentation, and operational metrics.
• Collaborate closely with engineering teams, business stakeholders, and vendors during active investigations and response efforts.
• Participate in an on‑call rotation and provide off‑hours support for critical incidents and material security events.
• Communicate investigation findings clearly and effectively to technical teams and leadership.
• Occasional travel (up to approximately 10%) may be required to support studios or on‑site incident response.

Required Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in computer science, Information Security, or equivalent practical experience. 10+ years of progressively accountable security experience, with a demonstrated track record of independent, expert-level judgment in incident response.
• Hands‑on experience in threat detection, security operations, and incident response, with active involvement across the full incident lifecycle.
• Strong understanding of the modern threat landscape, attacker tactics, techniques, and procedures.
• Proven ability to detect, triage, investigate, and respond to security incidents in enterprise environments.
• Experience performing detailed log analysis, correlation, and investigative triage.
• Strong written and verbal communication skills, with the ability to clearly articulate incident findings and response actions.
• Ability to work independently and collaboratively within the TDIR team and with technical and business stakeholders.
• Willingness to participate in an on‑call rotation and provide off‑hours support for critical security incidents.
• Hands‑on experience with security monitoring platforms such as SIEM and EDR, including building or significantly extending detection content (not solely tuning existing rules).
• Scripting or programming experience (e.g., Python, PowerShell, KQL) to support detection, investigation, or response automation.
• Strong host‑and network‑based forensic skills, including timeline reconstruction and root cause analysis.
• Working knowledge of how LLMs are applied to security operations (alert enrichment, auto‑triage, summarization) and the failure modes specific to that application, such as hallucinated verdicts, injection via log or artifact content, and over‑trust in model output.
• Fluency in English.

Preferred Qualifications

• 12+ years of relevant IT and security experience, including prior leadership or mentorship of less‑senior analysts.
• Hands‑on malware analysis experience using static and dynamic techniques.
• Experience implementing or operating SOAR platforms and security automation.
• Hands‑on experience building or integrating AI‑assisted triage into a SOC workflow (SOAR, case management, or custom pipeline), including designing constrained output schemas or guardrails rather than relying solely on vendor‑side content filtering.
• Familiarity with emerging threat models for AI‑augmented security tooling, such as prompt injection and verdict poisoning via analyzed artifacts.
• Identity‑focused detection experience, including Active Directory, hybrid identity, and privileged account monitoring.
• Understanding foundational security best practices, including system and network hardening.
• Ability to assess incidents quickly, recommend effective response actions, and mitigate operational and reputational risk.
• Experience interfacing effectively with leadership, engineering teams, and external vendors.
• Demonstrated engagement with the cybersecurity community or strong evidence of self‑driven learning and professional contribution.

At Activision, we strive to create the most iconic brands in gaming and entertainment. We’re driven by our mission to deliver unrivaled gaming experiences for the world to enjoy, together. We are home to some of the most beloved entertainment franchises including Call of Duty, Crash Bandicoot, Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater, and Guitar Hero. As a leading worldwide developer, publisher and distributor of interactive entertainment and products, our "press start" is simple: delight hundreds of millions of players around the world with innovative, fun, thrilling, and engaging entertainment experiences.

We’re not just looking back at our decades-long legacy; we’re forging ahead to keep advancing gameplay with some of the most popular titles and sophisticated technology in the world. We have bold ambitions to create the most inclusive company as we know our success comes from the passionate, creative, and diverse teams within our organization.

We’re in the business of delivering fun and unforgettable entertainment for our player community to enjoy. And our future opportunities have never been greater — this could be your opportunity to level up.

Ready to Activate Your Future?

Rewards

• Medical, dental, vision, health savings account or health reimbursement account, healthcare spending accounts, dependent care spending accounts, life and AD&D insurance, disability insurance;
• 401(k) with Company match, tuition reimbursement, charitable donation matching;
• Paid holidays and vacation, paid sick time, floating holidays, compassion and bereavement leaves, parental leave;
• Mental health & wellbeing programs, fitness programs, free and discounted games, and a variety of other voluntary benefit programs like supplemental life & disability, legal service, ID protection, rental insurance, and others;
• If the Company requires that you move geographic locations for the job, then you may also be eligible for relocation assistance.

In the U.S., the standard base pay range for this role is $124,000.00 - $229,400.00 Annual. These values reflect the expected base pay range of new hires across all U.S. locations. Ultimately, your specific range and offer will be based on several factors, including relevant experience, performance, and work location. Your Talent Professional can share this role’s range details for your local geography during the hiring process. In addition to a competitive base pay, employees in this role may be eligible for incentive compensation. Incentive compensation is not guaranteed. While we strive to provide competitive offers to successful candidates, new hire compensation is negotiable.