Senior Security Engineer - Detection & Response

Lambda; San Francisco (CA); Hybrid; USD 180,000 - 250,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Health insurance

Dental insurance

Vision coverage

401k Plan with 2% company match (USA)

Wellness stipend

Commuter stipend

Job summary

Lambda Security is hiring a hands-on security engineer to design and implement robust detection and response capabilities across cloud and bare-metal environments. You will drive threat hunting, incident response, and automation using AI-powered workflows, with on-call rotations to ensure 24/7 readiness.

As part of the Detection & Response team, you will mentor junior engineers, develop automated playbooks, and collaborate with Platform and Infrastructure teams to harden systems and expand

Qualifications

• 5+ years of hands-on security engineering experience specializing in detection engineering, threat hunting, or digital forensics and incident response (DFIR).
• Strong programming/scripting proficiency (e.g., Python, Go, Rust, or Bash) with a track record of building automated security tools and pipelines
• Deep technical knowledge of cloud infrastructure security (AWS/GCP), Linux system internals, container runtime security, and network telemetry
• Clear understanding of the unique requirements of securing a cloud infrastructure provider
• Proven experience writing detection rules (SIEM, YARA, Sigma, Falco, or EDR queries) and managing detections through software development best practices
• Hands-on experience conducting forensic investigations and triaging complex, multi-stage attacks across cloud environments
• Strong technical communication skills with the ability to document complex vulnerabilities, incident post-mortems, and architectural designs clearly
• Thrives in high-ambiguity environments where you must build structure while executing at startup pace

Responsibilities

• Design, build, and maintain detection rules, signatures, and analytics across Lambda's cloud, bare-metal, and internal infrastructure
• Conduct proactive threat hunting operations to uncover hidden threat actors, novel attack vectors, and zero-day vulnerabilities across multi-cloud and AI workloads
• Develop custom detection logic and playbooks as code, eliminating manual triage toil and reducing time-to-detect and time-to-respond
• Pioneer AI-powered detection and investigation workflows leveraging our internal LLM infrastructure to automate log analysis and threat intelligence context
• Lead technical incident response investigations for complex security events, performing deep-dive forensic analysis, root-cause identification, and containment
• Architect automated response capabilities and orchestration pipelines (SOAR) to programmatically isolate compromised assets and revoke compromised credentials
• Partner with Platform and Infrastructure engineering teams to harden systems, build security instrumentation, and ensure telemetry coverage across all services
• Participate in an engineering on-call rotation to maintain 24/7 operational readiness and rapid incident containment
• Conduct post-incident reviews to extract technical learnings, drive root-cause remediation, and prevent recurring incidents
• Mentor junior and mid-level security engineers, sharing technical domain expertise and promoting best practices in detection engineering and automation

Skills

Security engineering

Threat hunting

Digital forensics

Python

Go

Rust

Bash

Cloud security (AWS/GCP)

SIEM rules

Tools

AWS

GCP

Linux

Container security

Network telemetry

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 Security Engineering Lead, you will serve as a hands‑on technical expert on the Detection & Response team—acting as an intelligent backstop that ensures 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. You will help transform reactive security operations into a proactive threat management engine, dedicating the majority of your effort to automation, threat hunting, detection engineering, and incident response capability building rather than constant firefighting.

You 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. With unique access to LLMs hosted on our own infrastructure, you will pioneer AI‑powered security solutions that wouldn't be possible anywhere else. Key priorities include maintaining 24/7 operational resilience through smart automation, rapid incident investigation and mitigation, and advancing our technical D&R capabilities.

If you're excited about building detection and response automation so efficient that security operations become "almost boring," where code handles the routine so you can focus on novel threats, we want to talk.

What You’ll Do

Detection Engineering & Threat Hunting:

• Design, build, and maintain robust detection rules, signatures, and behavioral analytics across Lambda's cloud, bare-metal, and internal infrastructure
• Conduct proactive threat hunting operations to uncover hidden threat actors, novel attack vectors, and zero‑day vulnerabilities across multi‑cloud and AI workloads
• Develop custom detection logic and playbooks as code, eliminating manual triage toil and reducing time-to-detect and time-to-respond
• Pioneer AI‑powered detection and investigation workflows leveraging our internal LLM infrastructure to automate log analysis and threat intelligence context

Incident Response & Security Architecture:

• Lead technical incident response investigations for complex security events, performing deep‑de dive forensic analysis, root‑cause identification, and containment
• Architect automated response capabilities and orchestration pipelines (SOAR) to programmatically isolate compromised assets and revoke compromised credentials
• Partner with Platform and Infrastructure engineering teams to harden systems, build security instrumentation, and ensure telemetry coverage across all services

Operational Execution & Continuous Improvement:

• Participate in an engineering on‑call rotation to maintain 24/7 operational readiness and rapid incident containment
• Conduct post‑incident reviews to extract technical learnings, drive root‑cause remediation, and prevent recurring incidents

• Mentor junior and mid‑level security engineers, sharing technical domain expertise and promoting best practices in detection engineering and automation

You

• 5+ years of hands‑on security engineering experience specializing in detection engineering, threat hunting, or digital forensics and incident response (DFIR)
• Strong programming/scripting proficiency (e.g., Python, Go, Rust, or Bash) with a track record of building automated security tools and pipelines
• Deep technical knowledge of cloud infrastructure security (AWS/GCP), Linux system internals, container runtime security, and network telemetry
• Clear understanding of the unique requirements of securing a cloud infrastructure provider
• Proven experience writing detection rules (SIEM, YARA, Sigma, Falco, or EDR queries) and managing detections through software development best practices
• Hands‑on experience conducting forensic investigations and triaging complex, multi‑stage attacks across cloud environments
• Strong technical communication skills with the ability to document complex vulnerabilities, incident post‑mortems, and architectural designs clearly
• 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‑art LLMs to revolutionize security operations—imagine AI‑powered threat hunting, automated security report generation, and intelligent vulnerability prioritization at a scale only possible when you host the AI infrastructure yourself.
• Experience building D&R programs at AI/ML companies
• Track record using AI/ML for security operations automation (yes, we know it’s all brand new)
• Background scaling security during hypergrowth (10x growth phases)
• Experience with eBPF, kernel‑level telemetry, or specialized bare‑metal host security tools
• Experience with both build and buy decisions for security tooling
• Experience driving or providing significant evidence for compliance audits, such as SOC 2, ISO 27001, PCI‑DSS, HIPAA/HITECH, or FedRAMP.

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.