Principal Cyber Investigator

TaskUs Outsourcing Philippines, Inc.; United States; Remote; USD 140,000 - 215,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Medical, dental, vision insurance

401(k) with company match

Paid time off

Job summary

TaskUs is seeking a Principal Cyber Investigator to lead a dedicated investigations pod for frontier AI safety and risk management. You will oversee senior and junior investigators, adjudicate high-severity cyber misuse cases, and drive attribution and enforcement actions in collaboration with client teams.

Requires 9+ years in CTI/DFIR, strong adversary tradecraft, and experience guiding investigations. US-based with security clearances preferred; knowledge of MITRE ATT&CK and OSINT is a plus.

Qualifications

• 9+ years of hands-on cyber threat intel, DFIR, or related fields.
• Applied adversary tradecraft using MITRE ATT&CK, malware staging.
• Experience managing an investigative unit or threat pod.
• Ability to justify rationale in writing with partial data.
• Strong cross-disciplinary communication translating threats to policy/engineering.
• Based in the United States with work authorization.
• Nice to have: military/intelligence or national security cyber background.
• Experience assessing AI/LLM misuse or jailbreaking techniques.
• Active or recent U.S. Government Security Clearance (Secret/Top Secret).
• Industry certifications (GCFA, GCTI, GREM, OSCP, CISSP).

Responsibilities

• Act as the final technical authority on high-severity cyber escalations.
• Develop playbooks targeting priority abuse vectors like ransomware and data exfiltration.
• Lead and calibrate a pod of investigators; maintain quality workflows.
• Deliver precise case labeling to improve client AI detection models.
• Pivot telemetry to uncover coordinated adversarial campaigns and tactics.
• Synthesize complex findings into concise executive briefings for client leadership.
• Cultivate relationships with external threat intelligence communities.

Skills

CTI & DFIR

MITRE ATT&CK

Leadership

Judgment

Communication

US Location

Security Clearance

AI/LLM misuse

Certifications

Job description

About TaskUs

TaskUs is a provider of outsourced digital services and next-generation customer experience to fast-growing technology companies, helping its clients represent, protect and grow their brands. Leveraging a cloud-based infrastructure, TaskUs serves clients in the fastest-growing sectors, including social media, e-commerce, gaming, streaming media, food delivery, ride-sharing, HiTech, FinTech, and HealthTech. The People First culture at TaskUs has enabled the company to expand its workforce to approximately 60,000 employees globally. Presently, we have a presence in twenty-three locations across twelve countries, which include the Philippines, India, and the United States. It started with one ridiculously good idea to create a different breed of Business Processing Outsourcing (BPO)! We at TaskUs understand that achieving growth for our partners requires a culture of constant motion, exploring new technologies, being ready to handle any challenge at a moment’s notice, and mastering consistency in an ever-changing world.

What We Offer

At TaskUs, we prioritize our employees' well-being by offering competitive industry salaries and comprehensive benefits packages. Our commitment to a People First culture is reflected in the various departments we have established, including Total Rewards, Wellness, HR, and Diversity. We take pride in our inclusive environment and positive impact on the community. Moreover, we actively encourage internal mobility and professional growth at all stages of an employee's career within TaskUs.

Salary Range

per year.

Pay Transparency Statement

The base salary range represents the low and high end of the anticipated salary range for this position across our US locations. The “pay scale” provided is a good faith estimate of the range the employer reasonably expects to pay for the position at the time of hire. Actual salary will be determined based on various factors including, but not limited to, the candidate's qualifications, experience, skills, and specific geographic location.

Benefits

• We offer a comprehensive benefits package including medical, dental, and vision insurance; 401(k) with company match; and paid time off including vacation, sick leave, and holidays.

Application Window

This position is expected to remain open until 11-30-2026.

Principal Cyber Investigator

TaskUs partners with pioneering technology companies to build the safety, intelligence, and human-in-the-loop operations powering next-generation artificial intelligence. In this role, you will lead a dedicated cyber investigations pod supporting one of the world’s foremost frontier AI research and safety companies. Their Safeguards mission is clear: prevent state-of-the-art AI systems from being leveraged by malicious actors to cause harm. While automated systems catch misuse at scale, human investigative expertise serves as the ultimate ground truth. As the Principal Cyber Investigator, you will serve as the pod’s senior technical authority and operational lead. You will oversee a tiered team of investigators, direct complex actor and campaign-level attribution, recommend high-consequence enforcement actions, and ensure case labels provide high-fidelity training data for automated detection models.

What you will do

• Technical Escalations & Adjudication: Act as the final technical authority on the pod for ambiguous, high-severity cyber misuse escalations, customer appeals, and complex actor attribution.
• Investigation Standards: Develop and refine investigative playbooks targeting priority abuse vectors: ransomware, large-scale data exfiltration, local/remote exploits, and offensive cyber operations.
• Team Leadership & Calibration: Lead and mentor a pod of Senior and Junior Investigators; drive regular calibration routines and quality workflows to maintain defensible, consistent determinations across the team.
• Model Feedback & Data Labeling: Deliver precise, highly calibrated case labeling to benchmark, test, and directly improve the accuracy of client automated detection models.
• Campaign & Pattern Analysis: Pivot off isolated telemetry to uncover coordinated adversarial campaigns and emerging threat actor tactics.
• Executive Briefings: Synthesize complex cyber findings into concise, actionable briefings for client safety leadership; advise on emerging adversary tradecraft and program scaling needs.
• External Threat Intelligence: Cultivate working relationships with vetted external threat intelligence and information-sharing communities where client protocols permit.

What you bring

• 9+ years of hands-on experience in cyber threat intelligence (CTI), digital forensics and incident response (DFIR), offensive security, counter-cyber operations, or specialized OSINT investigations.
• Applied Adversary Tradecraft: Deep operational familiarity with the MITRE ATT&CK framework, offensive exploit lifecycles, C2 infrastructures, and ransomware/malware staging.
• Technical Leadership: Proven experience managing, mentoring, or technically directing an investigative unit, threat pod, or SOC escalation tier.
• Pragmatic Judgment: Proven ability to make decisive, reasoned determinations based on partial, noisy, or ambiguous data, with the ability to clearly justify your rationale in writing.
• Cross-Disciplinary Communication: Demonstrated skill translating technical threat mechanics into actionable risk assessments for policy, legal, and engineering counterparts.
• Location & Authorization: Based in the United States with unrestricted work authorization.
• Nice to have: Professional background in military intelligence, federal law enforcement, or national security cyber units tracking advanced persistent threats (APTs) or organized cybercrime.
• Direct experience assessing or red-teaming AI/LLM misuse, jailbreaking techniques, or autonomous agent vulnerabilities.
• Active or recent U.S. Government Security Clearance (Secret / Top Secret).
• Industry certifications reflecting deep technical or investigative capability (e.g., GCFA, GCTI, GREM, OSCP, CISSP).

Good to know

Sensitivity of Material: Daily work involves direct interaction with flagged prompts, malicious code, exploit attempts, and potential cyber threat tradecraft.

Security Screening: Candidates may be subject to client-directed insider threat screening and background checks prior to and during employment.

Work Setup

• Remote Type: Full time
• Salary Range: $140,000 - $215,000
• Location: US (Texas preferred)

In TaskUs we believe that innovation and higher performance are brought by people from all walks of life.

We welcome applicants of different backgrounds, demographics, and circumstances.

Inclusive and equitable practices are our responsibility as a business.

TaskUs is committed to providing equal access to opportunities. If you need reasonable accommodations in any part of the hiring process, please let us know.

TaskUs is proud to be an equal opportunity workplace and is an affirmative action employer. We celebrate and support diversity; we are committed to creating an inclusive environment for all employees.