Senior Active-Defense Detection Engineer

Workday; Reston (VA); Hybrid; USD 167,000 - 300,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Flex work

Job summary

Workday is seeking a Senior Principal Active Defense Engineer in Reston, VA. You will set the technical direction for threat detection, guide multi‑system initiatives, and drive the detections‑as‑code pipeline with AI‑assisted tooling.

You will lead architecture decisions, review complex changes, and mentor engineers to raise the team’s performance. This hands‑on role emphasizes software/ security engineering over people management.

Qualifications

• 10+ years in software, platform, or security engineering with production detections.
• Experience leading multi‑system initiatives and design/code reviews.
• Proficiency with SIEM platforms and cloud environments.

Responsibilities

• Set the technical direction and design standards for the detection portfolio.
• Be the senior reviewer for infrastructure changes and complex detections.
• Lead large initiatives from concept to production with measurable outcomes.
• Advance the detections‑as‑code lifecycle and CI/CD tooling.
• Mentor engineers to raise the technical ceiling across the team.
• Determine where AI agents and automation belong in detection work.

Skills

Detection engineering

Technical leadership

Software development

Detections-as-code

AI-assisted engineering

Cloud & platform breadth

Tools

Splunk

Spark

Python

AI tooling

Job description

Workday is seeking a Senior Principal Active Defense Engineer in Reston, VA. You will set the technical direction for threat detection, guide multi‑system initiatives, and drive the detections‑as‑code pipeline with AI‑assisted tooling.

You will lead architecture decisions, review complex changes, and mentor engineers to raise the team’s performance. This hands‑on role emphasizes software/ security engineering over people management.