Security Engineer, Detection and Response

Serval; San Francisco (CA); On-site; USD 150,000 - 200,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Impact on product success

Growth opportunities

Innovative company culture

Job summary

Serval is seeking a Detection and Response Lead to spearhead its cybersecurity operations in San Francisco. You will be responsible for implementing detection and response strategies while mentoring a dedicated team of cybersecurity professionals.

This role requires 10+ years in cybersecurity, expertise in incident response, and strong leadership skills. Join us to shape the future of intelligent automation and make a significant impact on our organization's security posture.

Qualifications

• 10+ years in cybersecurity with expertise in detection engineering and incident response.
• Experience in leading detection and response teams.
• Exceptional written and verbal communication skills.

Responsibilities

• Design and implement detection and response operations.
• Build and mentor a team for security monitoring and incident response.
• Partner with engineering to ensure detection systems are embedded.

Skills

Cybersecurity expertise

Leadership skills

Incident response

Technical credibility

Communication skills

Modern observability stacks knowledge

Job description

Who We Are

Serval is an AI-native automation platform transforming how enterprises operate. We build intelligent agents that understand real-world workflows and execute them end-to-end — replacing manual processes and rigid legacy systems with adaptive, learning software. Founded in early 2024, Serval is already trusted by companies like Fox, Notion, Perplexity, Vercel, and Brex to automate high-volume, high-friction operational work across their organizations.

At the core of Serval is an agentic AI platform that turns natural language into production-grade workflows. Our agents don’t just respond to requests — they reason, take action across systems, and continuously improve with usage. What began with operational use cases has quickly evolved into a horizontal AI automation layer used across IT, HR, Finance, Security, Legal, and Engineering.

Our mission is to eliminate repetitive, manual work across the enterprise and give teams leverage through intelligent automation. Long term, we’re building the universal AI operations layer — a system of agents that sits across business functions and runs the workflows that keep modern companies moving.

We’re backed by leading investors including Sequoia Capital, Redpoint Ventures, Meritech, First Round, General Catalyst, Elad Gil, and others.

Role Overview

As Detection and Response Lead, you'll build and scale the foundations of Serval's cybersecurity detection and response operations. You will set the strategy and drive execution for security monitoring, incident response, recovery, and post-incident improvement across our infrastructure and the systems our customers trust us to operate in.

You'll be a hands‑on leader with deep technical credibility and strong operational instincts. You will build and mentor a team, partner closely with Engineering and Product, and ensure that detection and response capabilities are embedded by design into the systems that power Serval.

What You'll Do

• Design, implement, and operate detection and response operations, including continuous monitoring, triage, investigation, containment, and remediation of security events across a diverse set of networks and infrastructure.
• Build, lead, and directly mentor a team spanning observability, detection and response, and threat intelligence, hiring and scaling these functions deliberately and proportionately as Serval's platform and customer footprint grow.
• Ensure world‑class operational rigor and readiness through incident playbooks, on‑call and escalation paths, tabletop exercises, and continuous improvement of response quality and speed.
• Improve detection quality and coverage by partnering with engineering teams to ensure critical telemetry is available, reliable, and actionable across cloud, corporate, and production environments.
• Partner deeply across Engineering, Product, and Infrastructure to embed detection and response into Serval's systems by design rather than as an afterthought.
• Build a security program capable of withstanding sophisticated adversaries, including by using Serval's own agents to solve frontier security and security‑operations problems.

What You'll Need

• Have 10+ years in cybersecurity with deep expertise in detection engineering, incident response, and security operations.
• Have deep experience building and leading detection and response, instrumentation/observability, and threat intelligence teams.
• Have stellar leadership skills and a demonstrated history of driving durable, continuous improvements to programs, processes, and people.
• Have exceptional written and verbal communication skills, can remain calm under pressure, and can effectively run command of security incidents involving numerous stakeholders across a diverse gamut of teams, expertise, and seniority.
• Have deep expertise in modern observability stacks (e.g., SIEM, data lakes, EDR, cloud telemetry, logging) and detection primitives.
• Understand modern adversary tradecraft (TTPs) and have demonstrated experience translating it into practical detection strategies and response actions.
• Are mission‑oriented, have unimpeachable integrity, and are passionate about detecting and responding to adversaries in a highly complex, fast‑paced environment.

What We Offer

• Impact: Be a key player in shaping the success of our product and company.
• Growth: Build a fundamentally new AI product offering with the support of our experienced team and investors. Grow rapidly with the company.
• Culture: Join a culture that values innovation, ownership, accountability, and fun.