Senior Manager, Detection and Response

Lambda Inc.; San Francisco, Northern (CA, KY); Hybrid; USD 210,000 - 270,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Health, dental, and vision coverage

Wellness stipend

Commuter stipend

401k Plan with 2% match

Flexible paid time off

Job summary

Lambda, The Superintelligence Cloud, is seeking a Senior Manager of Detection & Response to lead a 24/7 security operations program across multi-cloud and bare-metal infra. Reporting to the CISO, you will build automation, threat hunting, and proactive capabilities while guiding a growing team of engineers in a high-growth environment.

You’ll shape the D&R strategy, drive incident response, and partner with Product and Platform teams to improve prevention and response.

Qualifications

• 10+ years of security experience with 5+ years leading technical teams.
• Proven ability to build security programs from the ground up.
• Automation-first security programs to reduce toil.
• Cloud infrastructure security expertise.
• Ability to translate security work into executive metrics.

Responsibilities

• Build, hire, and lead a Detection & Response team with 24/7 ops.
• Define processes, culture, and rhythms balancing startup agility with security discipline.
• Conduct regular 1:1s and create clear career paths.
• Drive project priorities, deadlines, and blameless post-incident reviews.
• Define threat management frameworks and automation standards.
• Architect incident response processes and escalation protocols.
• Guide technology choices including AI-powered detection capabilities.
• Collaborate with Product and Platform teams to evolve capabilities.
• Lead cross-functional collaboration during critical events and executive reporting.
• Establish 6-month roadmap and measurable outcomes.

Skills

Security leadership

Automation

Threat hunting

Incident response

Executive communication

Job description

Lambda, The Superintelligence Cloud, is a leader in AI cloud infrastructure serving tens of thousands of customers. Our customers range from AI researchers to enterprises and hyperscalers. Lambda's mission is to make compute as ubiquitous as electricity and give everyone the power of superintelligence. One person, one GPU.

If you'd like to build the world's best AI cloud, join us.

*Note: This position requires presence in our Bellevue, San Francisco, or San Jose office location 4 days per week; Lambda’s designated work from home day is currently Tuesday.

About the Role

Lambda Security protects some of the world's most valuable digital assets: invaluable training data, model weights representing immense computational investments, and the sensitive inputs required to leverage best of breed AI models. We're responsible for securing every byte that powers breakthrough artificial intelligence.

Reporting to the CISO, you'll lead the Detection & Response team that acts as an intelligent backstop—ensuring Lambda is the safest place to build with AI by catching security issues in real-time while enabling our business to move at hypergrowth velocity. Your team will transform reactive security operations into a proactive threat management engine, dedicating the majority of their effort to automation, threat hunting, and capability building rather than constant firefighting.

Your team will directly affect customers’ trust in the safety of their data by implementing enterprise-grade detection capabilities, automating incident response workflows, and hardening our multi-cloud and bare metal infrastructure while you are building sustainable programs where senior engineers thrive solving novel security challenges. With unique access to LLMs hosted on our own infrastructure, your team will pioneer AI-powered security solutions that wouldn't be possible anywhere else. Key priorities include 24/7 operational coverage, maintaining customer trust through rapid incident response, and delivering a comprehensive D&R strategy within your first 6 months.

If you're excited about building security operations so efficient that they're \"almost boring\,\" where automation handles the routine so your team can focus on the novel, we want to talk.

We value diverse backgrounds, experiences, and skills, and we are excited to hear from candidates who can bring unique perspectives to our team. If you do not exactly meet this description but believe you may be a good fit, please still apply and help us understand your readiness for a Senior Manager role. Your application is not a waste of our time.

What You’ll Do

Team Leadership & Management:

• Build, hire, and lead a high-performing Detection & Response team that can scale with Lambda's hypergrowth while maintaining 24/7 operational excellence

• Define team processes, culture, and operating rhythms that balance startup agility with security discipline, creating an environment where senior engineers thrive on automation and novel challenges

• Conduct regular one-on-ones, provide constructive feedback, and create clear career development paths that help security engineers advance their technical and leadership skills

• Drive outcomes by managing project priorities, deadlines, and deliverables while establishing our blameless post-incident culture focused on systemic improvements rather than individual accountability

Technical Strategy & Execution:

• Define and implement threat management frameworks that transform reactive security operations into proactive threat hunting and detection, establishing automation standards that eliminate repetitive work and enable your team to focus on novel challenges

• Architect incident response processes, escalation frameworks, and triage protocols that protect Lambda from impact while scaling with the company’s growth

• Guide technology choices and evangelize new security tools, including pioneering AI-powered detection capabilities using our direct access to state-of-the-...LLMs

Strategic Collaboration & Business Impact:

• Create data-driven insights showing where we are reacting most frequently to guide investments in preventative controls

• Partner with Product and Platform engineering teams to evolve our detection and response capabilities as Lambda’s infrastructure grows

• Lead cross-functional collaboration during critical events and establish executive reporting that translates technical incidents into business impact while driving blameless post-incident reviews to continuously strengthen security posture

Operational Excellence & Scaling:

• Drive weekly operations reviews that ensure nothing falls through the cracks while building institutional knowledge and defining repeatable processes from every incident

• Define sustainable on-call rotations and operational procedures that maintain 24/7 coverage without burning out senior engineers

• Establish the team's 6-month strategic roadmap for comprehensive D&R capabilities while defining success criteria and measurable outcomes

What We Think a Candidate Needs to Demonstrate to Succeed

• 10+ years of security experience with 5+ years leading technical teams, demonstrating ability to build and manage independently

• Proven ability to define and build security programs from the ground up that accelerate business initiatives, with demonstrated experience establishing team processes, technical frameworks, and cross-functional partnerships

• Excellence at building automation-first security programs where technology eliminates toil and teams never do the same thing twice

• Clear understanding of the unique requirements of securing a cloud infrastructure provider

• Proven ability to create sustainable team cultures where senior engineers thrive long-term rather than burning out on repetitive tasks

• Strong judgment in security response, understanding real business impact and calibrating actions proportionally

• Track record of translating technical security work into executive communications and business-aligned metrics

• Thrives in high-ambiguity environments where you must build structure while executing at startup pace

Nice to Have

• Excitement about leveraging our direct access to state-of-the-... ...

Salary Range Information

The annual salary range for this position has been set based on market data and other factors. However, a salary higher or lower than this range may be appropriate for a candidate whose qualifications differ meaningfully from those listed in the job description.

About Lambda

• Founded in 2012, with 500+ employees, and growing fast

• Our investors notably include TWG Global, US Innovative Technology Fund (USIT), Andra Capital, SGW, Andrej Karpathy, ARK Invest, Fincadia Advisors, G Squared, In-Q-Tel (IQT), KHK & Partners, NVIDIA, Pegatron, Supermicro, Wistron, Wiwynn, Gradient Ventures, Mercato Partners, SVB, 1517, and Crescent Cove

• We have research papers accepted at top machine learning and graphics conferences, including NeurIPS, ICCV, SIGGRAPH, and TOG

• Our values are publicly available: https://lambda.ai/careers

• We offer generous cash & equity compensation

• Health, dental, and vision coverage for you and your dependents

• Wellness and commuter stipends for select roles

• 401k Plan with 2% company match (USA employees)

• Flexible paid time off plan that we all actually use

Equal Opportunity Employer

Lambda is an Equal Opportunity employer. Applicants are considered without regard to race, color, religion, creed, national origin, age, sex, gender, marital status, sexual orientation and identity, genetic information, veteran status, citizenship, or any other factors prohibited by local, state, or federal law.