Principal Security Engineer

F5 Networks, Inc; United States; On-site; USD 140,000 - 190,000; Full time

Job summary

F5 Networks, Inc. is seeking a Principal Security Engineer to lead the Security Incident Response Team (SIRT) and provide expert security leadership across the organization. You will drive incident handling, vulnerability management, and security strategy for F5 products and services.

The role requires deep expertise in cyber security, incident handling methodologies, and communication with customers. You will mentor teams, research emerging threats, and contribute to security content,

Qualifications

• Extensive experience leading security incident response programs.
• Ability to manage multiple security incidents with competing priorities.
• Strong written and verbal communication for customers and stakeholders.
• In-depth knowledge of application, network, and infrastructure security.

Responsibilities

• Lead and coordinate PSIRT vulnerabilities and advisories.
• Mentor security engineers and develop training.
• Develop incident response plans and post-mortems.
• Communicate risk and remediation strategies to stakeholders.
• Lead cross-functional security initiatives.

Skills

Security leadership

Incident response

Threat analysis

Mentoring

Cross-functional collaboration

Job description

At F5, we strive to bring a better digital world to life. Our teams empower organizations across the globe to create, secure, and run applications that enhance how we experience our evolving digital world. We are passionate about cybersecurity, from protecting consumers from fraud to enabling companies to focus on innovation.

Everything we do centers around people. That means we obsess over how to make the lives of our customers, and their customers, better. And it means we prioritize a diverse F5 community where each individual can thrive.

The Principal Security Engineer is a technical security position in the F5 Security Incident Response Team (F5 SIRT). Addressing security issues in F5 products is the responsibility of the F5 Security Incident Response Team (F5 SIRT). The F5 SIRT is a dedicated, global team that manages the receipt, investigation, and public reporting of security vulnerability information that is related to F5 products and networks.

The Principal Security Engineer position provides expert security technical leadership for F5 SIRT. This position requires complete Security Knowledge and an expert with regards to security threats, incident handling methodologies and offensive/defensive attack vectors. A Principal Security Engineer follows incident handling procedures to drive mitigation of security incidents and will be called to perform expert attack analysis, configuration suggestions, and potential onsite interaction. A Principal Security Engineer can handle multiple active issues of diverse scope simultaneously while maintaining good communication, particularly written communication to our customers, and accepts ownership of issues until a resolution is delivered or a business as usual state is returned, providing high customer satisfaction. When not engaged in incidents, a Principal Security Engineer will mentor other security related issues, researches emerging threats and both documents and presents their impact on F5 products and services. Advocates every single day for improving the security of F5 products and services.

A good candidate has a deep passion for security and a desire to help develop a security mindset in others. The role also requires a strong ability to work with incomplete information and to adapt to changing priorities.

PRIMARY RESPONSIBILITIES:

• Responsible for upholding F5s business code of ethics & for promptly reporting violations of the code or other company policies
• Manages multiple issues and prioritizes based upon customer and business needs, without direction
• Provides F5 customers with a consistently high-quality support experience
• Assist other Security Engineers with other tasks as required based upon business operation needs
• Effectively engages supporting escalation personnel, without direction
• Participate in weekend support rotation
• Participate in tier 2 and tier 3 security support
• Provides F5 customers with high-quality support experience
• Manages multiple issues and prioritizes based upon customer and business needs, without direction
• Effectively engages supporting escalation personnel, without direction
• Ensure complete and clear incident documentation
• Maintain incident documentation, participate in post-mortems, and write incident reports.
• Continuous research into emerging threats and mitigation options
• Independently develops and deliver security content and training based on research and testing within the security field and with F5 products to drive security mindset.
• Perform general security awareness and specific security technology training
• Engages in ongoing training within the security field and with F5 products
• Follows processes defined in F5’s Quality Management System (QMS)
• Work closely with others to develop incident response plans
• Identify the gaps between the security incident response process and customers' needs, optimize/improve the workflow/process
• Act as the technical lead, identify the knowledge/technical skill gaps in the team, develop a training plan for the team, mentor/train other members of the team
• Identify trends and/or common knowledge gaps and ensure they are documented via the KCS Solve Loop
• Ensure that security-related knowledge is documented within KCS and represent Security within the KCS Evolve Loop, for example RCA feedback into product design & documentation
• May lead projects and provide guidance/training to less experienced staff, mentoring.
• Perform expert threat and vulnerability management, monitoring of CVE, and vendor notifications
• Evaluate and execute cross-functional security initiatives across the enterprise.
• Work with cross-functional Engineering teams to ensure all systems are properly remediated according to our policies and standards.
• Lead steering committee(s) to analyze vulnerabilities and their impact to assess risk ratings
• Provide strategic security analytics metrics and reports.
• Capable of anticipating future business challenges and crafting security strategies that mitigate those risks
• Provide security-related metrics for all levels, including executive-level dashboards to demonstrate process effectiveness and remediation across the enterprise
• Effectively communicate and document risks related to the vulnerability environment and appropriate levels of urgency to management and engineering staff
• Represent Security on organizational projects and ensure adherence to existing security policies and standards.
• Work closely with Incident Response and Risk Management teams and leverage corporate tools to provide supporting documentation for remediation prioritization and emergency security coverage.
• Ability to think with a security mindset. The successful candidate has a strong IT background with in-depth knowledge of several key security practice areas: application security, network security, and infrastructure security.

Product Security Incident Response Team (PSIRT) and Vulnerability Management

• Monitor and identify security vulnerabilities in F5’s products and Services by tracking internal reports, external researcher submissions, bug bounty programs, and industry threat intelligence
• Triage and assess reported vulnerabilities and incidents, determining severity, impact, and prioritization based on risk to customers and systems
• Coordinate with Product Engineering, Product Management, Legal, Corporate Communications, and other teams to develop security advisories for security issues.
• Communicate effectively with stakeholders, disseminating clear security advisories, mitigations, and fix notifications to customers, partners, and the public.
• Manage interactions with external security researchers, validating vulnerability disclosures, and facilitating recognition or rewards through bug bounty programs when applicable.
• Document all security incidents, responses, and resolutions to ensure compliance, support audits, and drive process improvements.
• Develop, maintain, and update security/Quarterly Security Notification (QSN) playbooks, and workflows to optimize vulnerability management and incident response processes.
• Engage with the broader security community, participating in industry forums, sharing threat intelligence, and collaborating with other PSIRTs to stay ahead of emerging threats (CISA, FIRST, VINCE, etc).

Customer Security Incident Response

• Provide incident handling and drive both attack analysis and mitigation options
• Participate in tier 2 and tier 3 security