Senior Detection Engineer

DoorDash, Inc.; Northern (KY); Hybrid; USD 160,000 - 235,000; Full time

Job summary

DoorDash, Inc. is seeking a senior detection engineer to design, tune, and maintain detection content across cloud, endpoints, and the marketplace.

You will partner with incident response, insider risk, and threat intel teams to reduce alert volumes while increasing fidelity, building agentic tooling and scalable detections. You will lead detection engineering projects, contribute to a modern data platform, and participate in on-call rotations.

Qualifications

• 7+ years of experience in secure coding, alert development, and detection engineering.
• Direct experience building, maintaining, and operating a detection-as-code pipeline.
• Proven automation that measurably improved detection accuracy, velocity, or quality.
• Experience building agents to solve detection problems efficiently.
• Extensive knowledge of cloud-based and distributed systems.
• Experience with global cross-functional partners (IR, insider risk, threat hunting).
• Mastery of SIEM querying and programming languages (Python, Go, SQL, SPL, KQL).
• Experience mapping MITRE ATT&CK/D3FEND to detection coverage.
• Excellent verbal and written communication and stakeholder management.
• Familiarity with Snowflake, Cortex, and Google SecOps is preferred.

Responsibilities

• Conduct hands-on detection engineering for custom alerting and risk-based analytics.
• Integrate external signals into alerting pipelines for specific use cases.
• Develop and maintain agentic tooling to improve detection efficacy.
• Leverage logs and telemetry to build detections at scale.
• Work with telemetry to produce meaningful security signals.
• Maintain detection repositories, use case libraries, and optimize content.
• Coordinate with cross-functional teams on threats targeting DoorDash.
• Lead projects that improve security posture across DoorDash brands.
• Create standards and documentation to improve service consistency.
• Mentor and uplevel other Cyber Defense engineers; participate in on-call rotation.

Skills

Security engineering

Detection engineering

Alert development

Automation in detection

Cloud knowledge

Cross-functional partners

SIEM queries

MITRE ATT&CK/D3FEND

Communication skills

Snowflake Cortex Google SecOps

Tools

Snowflake

Cortex

Google SecOps

Job description

About the Team

At DoorDash, including international brands Deliveroo and Wolt, we’re building the industry’s most scalable and reliable delivery network to support our three-sided marketplace of consumers, merchants, and Dashers.

Global Cyber Defense is a highly talented and globally distributed team that covers response, intelligence, insider risk, threat hunting, automation, and detection engineering.

We exist to keep our brands safe for the Dashers, merchants, and consumers who depend on us. Our mission is to detect, investigate, and respond to cyber threats with speed and precision, while continuously hardening our defenses through automation, AI, and cross-regional collaboration.

About the Role

The senior detection engineer is part of the larger detection engineering team that creates, tunes, maintains, and improves the detection lifecycle. This hands-on role is at the forefront of agentic detection engineering of a rapidly maturing security function. You’ll work closely with our data pipelines team, incident response, insider risk, and threat intelligence teams to make the most effective detection content to detect threats as quickly as possible.

Detection at DoorDash spans more than the corporate estate. You’ll build coverage across cloud infrastructure, corporate endpoints and identity, and the marketplace itself - where consumer, merchant, and Dasher platforms create abuse and insider-risk patterns you won’t find in a typical enterprise SOC. We’re actively consolidating detection onto a modern data platform, so you’ll have real influence over what the pipeline looks like.

This role reports to the Senior Manager, Cyber Defense located in the United States and participation in an on-call rotation is required for this role.

You’re excited about this opportunity because you will…

• Conduct hands-on detection engineering for custom alerting, to include implementing risk-based analytics to reduce alert volumes and promote high-fidelity alert content
• Integrate external signals such as threat intelligence into alerting pipelines tailored to specific use cases
• Develop and maintain agentic tooling to increase detection efficacy and efficiency
• Leverage security tooling, logs, and custom telemetry to build detections at scale
• Work with structured and unstructured telemetry to produce meaningful security signals
• Maintain detection repositories, use case libraries, and conduct routine content optimization
• Coordinate with cross-functional teams, internally and externally, on threats targeting DoorDash
• Participate in and lead projects that improve the security posture of all DoorDash brands
• Create and maintain standards and documentation to improve service consistency
• Mentor and uplevel other engineers within the Cyber Defense organization
• Participate in and support our on-call rotation

We’re excited about you because you have…

• 7+ years of experience in secure coding, alert development, and detection engineering.
• Direct experience building, maintaining, and operating a detection-as-code pipeline
• A proven track record building automation that measurably improved detection accuracy, velocity, or quality
• Demonstrated experience building agents to effectively and efficiently solve detection problems
• Extensive knowledge of cloud based and distributed systems
• Experience working with global and cross-functional partners, especially incident response, insider risk, and threat hunting teams
• Mastery of SIEM querying (sql, spl, kql) and programming languages (python, go, etc)
• Experience translating MITRE ATT&CK, D3FEND, and other industry frameworks into meaningful rationalizations of detection coverage
• Excellent verbal and written communication, presentation, and stakeholder management skills
• Experience with Snowflake, Cortex, Google SecOps is preferred

Compensation

The successful candidate’s starting pay will fall within the pay range listed below and is determined based on job-related factors including, but not limited to, skills, experience, qualifications, work location, and market conditions. Base salary is localized according to an employee’s work location. Ranges are market-dependent and may be modified in the future.

In addition to base salary, the compensation for this role includes opportunities for equity grants.

DoorDash cares about you and your overall well-being. That’s why we offer a comprehensive benefits package to all regular employees, which includes a 401(k) plan with employer matching, 16 weeks of paid parental leave, wellness benefits, commuter benefits match, paid time off and paid sick leave in compliance with applicable laws (e.g. Colorado Healthy Families and Workplaces Act). DoorDash also offers medical, dental, and vision benefits, 11 paid holidays, disability and basic life insurance, family forming assistance, and a mental health program, among others.

Paid time off details

• For salaried roles: flexible paid time off/vacation, plus 80 hours of paid sick time per year.
• For hourly roles: vacation accrued at about 1 hour for every 25.97 hours worked (e.g. about 6.7 hours/month if working 40 hours/week; about 3.4 hours/month if working 20 hours/week), and paid sick time accrued at 1 hour for every 30 hours worked (e.g. about 5.8 hours/month if working 40 hours/week; about 2.9 hours/month if working 20 hours/week).

The national base pay range for this position within the United States, including Illinois and Colorado. $159,800-$235,000 USD

About DoorDash

At DoorDash, our mission to empower local economies shapes how we can move quickly, learn, and reiterate in order to make impactful decisions that display empathy for our range of users—from Dashers to merchant partners to consumers.

We are a technology and logistics company that started by enabling door-to-door delivery, and we’re looking for team members who can help us go from a company that is known as the place you order food to a company that people turn to for any and all goods. DoorDash is growing rapidly and changing constantly, which gives our team members the opportunity to share their unique perspectives, solve new challenges, and own their careers.

We’re committed to supporting employees’ happiness, healthiness, and overall well-being by providing comprehensive benefits and perks including premium health care, wellness expense reimbursement, paid parental leave and more.

Our Commitment to Diversity and Inclusion

We’re committed to growing and empowering a more inclusive community within our company, industry, and cities. That’s why we hire and cultivate diverse teams of people from all backgrounds, experiences, and perspectives. We believe that true innovation happens when everyone has room at the table and the tools, resources, and opportunity to excel.

Statement of Non-Discrimination

In keeping with our beliefs and goals, no employee or applicant will face discrimination or harassment based on: race, color, ancestry, national origin, religion, age, gender, marital/domestic partner status, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, disability status, or veteran status. Above and beyond discrimination and harassment based on "protected categories," we also strive to prevent other subtler forms of inappropriate behavior (i.e., stereotyping) from ever gaining a foothold in our office. Whether blatant or hidden, barriers to success have no place at DoorDash. We value a diverse workforce - people who identify as women, non-binary or gender non-conforming, LGBTQIA+, American Indian or Native Alaskan, Black or African American, Hispanic or Latinx, Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander, differently-abled, caretakers and parents, and veterans are strongly encouraged to apply.

Pursuant to the San Francisco Fair Chance Ordinance, Los Angeles Fair Chance Initiative for Hiring Ordinance, and any other state or local hiring regulations, we will consider for employment any qualified applicant, including those with arrest and conviction records, in a manner consistent with the applicable regulation.