Security Engineer, Detection

Google; Reston (VA); On-site; USD 123,000 - 175,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Equity

Bonus

Job summary

Google is seeking a Security Engineer in the Infrastructure Detection domain to help secure Alphabet's backend platforms and Google Cloud. You will design detections, harden systems, and collaborate with software engineers to fix security flaws.

The role requires experience in security assessments, threat modeling, and coding in general purpose languages. You will participate in a 24/7 security operations program, drive proactive defenses, and contribute to AI-driven security tooling.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree or equivalent practical experience.
• 1 year of experience with security assessments or security design reviews or threat modeling.
• 1 year of coding experience in one or more general purpose languages.
• Experience with security engineering, computer and network security and security protocols.

Responsibilities

• Design, implement, and maintain high-fidelity detections across critical infrastructure focus areas, including compute (GKE), supply chain, IAM/API (LOAS, Cloud IAM), and network.
• Partner with program teams to deploy agentic detection engineering workflows, shifting defenses from "Detect and Respond" to machine-speed "Infer and Interrupt."
• Ground detection logic in factual threat data by leveraging proven exploit paths from Red teams, Orange teams, and the Vulnerability Reward Program (VRP).
• Reduce manual triage toil and operational burden by optimizing feedback loops between prevention, detection, and response.
• Participate in a 24/7 global operation that hunts for and responds to security events on Google's networks. Perform investigations on a wide variety of events from various sources to determine whether they pose a threat to Google.

Skills

Security assessments

Threat modeling

Coding experience

Security engineering

Education

Bachelor's degree or equivalent

Job description

Minimum Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree or equivalent practical experience.
• 1 year of experience with security assessments or security design reviews or threat modeling.
• 1 year of coding experience in one or more general purpose languages.
• Experience with security engineering, computer and network security and security protocols.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience in responding to security problems in target-rich environments, looking at security alerts, front-line analysis, and response.
• Expertise with signals development, threat hunting, and threat modeling.
• Expertise in the analysis of large data sets and intrusion detection systems.
• Knowledge of modern AI/ML frameworks and tools, including experience in prompt engineering.

About The Job

Our Security team works to create and maintain the safest operating environment for Google's users and developers. Security Engineers work with network equipment and actively monitor our systems for attacks and intrusions. In this role, you will also work with software engineers to proactively identify and fix security flaws and vulnerabilities.

The Detection team develops and maintains the signals, tools, and infrastructure that we use, constantly evolving them to match sophisticated attackers. As part of this team, you will be building advanced and novel detection mechanisms for attacker techniques, tactics and procedures, developing systems to automate remediation, conducting threat hunting, and performing network and systems forensics, as well as malware and indicator analysis.

As a Security Engineer in the Infrastructure Detection domain, you will be at the forefront of securing Alphabet's backend platforms and hardware. You will bridge the boundary between Google Cloud Platform (GCP) and production (network, data center). Our outlook is to establish a self-defending enterprise where no adversary can exploit or abuse our global infrastructure undetected. You will help us transition from manual, reactive security models to proactive, highly automated, and AI-driven defense systems capable of sublinear coverage growth. You will help protect network boundaries, harden systems against attacks, and actively build the intelligent automation required to defend highly sensitive data at an unprecedented scale.

Individual pay is determined by factors including job-related skills, experience, and relevant education or training.

US: $123000 - $175000 (USD) + 15% bonus target + equity + benefits

Responsibilities

• Design, implement, and maintain high-fidelity detections across critical infrastructure focus areas, including compute (GKE), supply chain, IAM/API (LOAS, Cloud IAM), and network.
• Partner with program teams to deploy agentic detection engineering workflows, shifting defenses from "Detect and Respond" to machine-speed "Infer and Interrupt."
• Ground detection logic in factual threat data by leveraging proven exploit paths from Red teams, Orange teams, and the Vulnerability Reward Program (VRP).
• Reduce manual triage toil and operational burden by optimizing feedback loops between prevention, detection, and response.
• Participate in a 24/7 global operation that hunts for and responds to security events on Google's networks. Perform investigations on a wide variety of events from various sources to determine whether they pose a threat to Google.

Google is proud to be an equal opportunity workplace and is an affirmative action employer. We are committed to equal employment opportunity regardless of race, color, ancestry, religion, sex, national origin, sexual orientation, age, citizenship, marital status, disability, gender identity or Veteran status. We also consider qualified applicants regardless of criminal histories, consistent with legal requirements. See also Google's EEO Policy and EEO is the Law. If you have a disability or special need that requires accommodation, please let us know by completing our Accommodations for Applicants form.