Specialist, Cyber Detection Engineer

Prudential Financial; Newark (NJ); On-site; USD 96,200 - 158,800; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Market competitive base salaries

Medical, dental, vision

401(k) plan with company match

Pension plan

Wellness programs

Education benefit

Employee Stock Purchase Plan

Job summary

Prudential Financial is seeking a Specialist, Cyber Detection Engineer to design and maintain enterprise threat detection across on-prem and cloud environments. You will operationalize alerting, author detections, and translate threat intel into actionable content.

The role emphasizes improving detection coverage, validating detections with emulation data, and collaborating with platform teams to address telemetry gaps. Strong SIEM/XDR skills and scripting ability are required.

Qualifications

• 3+ years of experience in detection engineering, incident response, threat hunting, or security operations in large enterprise environments.
• Experience with Endpoint, Identity, Network, Cloud & SaaS technologies and logging.
• Experience developing detection content across telemetry sources.
• Strong SIEM/XDR proficiency and advanced query writing (Splunk SPL, KQL, SQL).
• Solid understanding of adversary tradecraft with MITRE ATT&CK applied to detection design and validation.
• Ability to reason about attacker behaviors and detection trade-offs with operational impact.
• Experience scripting (Python, PowerShell) and interacting with REST/GraphQL APIs.
• Strong written and verbal communication skills.

Responsibilities

• Operationalize security alerting and develop new custom detection capabilities across endpoint, identity, network, cloud, and application domains.
• Author and maintain detections using SIEM/XDR platforms, ensuring performance, scalability, and precision.
• Transform threat intelligence and hunt findings into new detection content and coverage improvements.
• Validate detections using attack emulation results, historical data, and safe simulations.
• Identify telemetry gaps and work with platform teams to remediate.
• Rapidly develop temporary analytics to support Incident Response during active investigations.
• Participate in continuous improvement initiatives, metrics, and lifecycle management processes.

Skills

Detection engineering

Incident response

Threat hunting

Security operations

MITRE ATT&CK

Scripting

Tools

Splunk SPL

KQL

SQL

Python

PowerShell

Job description

Job Classification
Technology - Information Security

Are you interested in building capabilities that enable the organization with innovation, speed, agility, scalability, and efficiency? The Global Technology Operations team takes great pride in our culture where digital transformation is built into our DNA! When you join our organization at Prudential, you’ll unlock an exciting and impactful career – all while growing your skills and advancing your profession at one of the world’s leading financial services institutions.

Your Team & Role
The Specialist, Cyber Detection Engineer will serve as a hands-on technical contributor responsible for designing and maintaining enterprise threat detection capabilities across on-prem and cloud environments.

This role is focused on the continual improvement of detection capabilities, making sure they are aligned with enterprise risk and the evolving threat landscape. You will partner closely with other teams to design and build new detection capabilities that produce actionable and operationally effective alerting.

Here Is What You Can Expect on a Typical Day

• Operationalize security alerting and develop new custom detection capabilities across endpoint, identity, network, cloud, and application domains.
• Author and maintain detections using SIEM/XDR platforms, ensuring performance, scalability, and precision.
• Transform threat intelligence, incident learnings, purple-team results, and hunt findings into new detection content, enhancements, or coverage improvements.
• Validate detections using realistic attack scenarios, emulation results, historical data, and safe adversary simulations.
• Identify telemetry gaps and log data quality issues that limit visibility or detection effectiveness, and work with platform and infrastructure teams to remediate.
• Rapidly develop temporary analytics or scoping queries to support Incident Response efforts during active investigations.
• Participate in continuous improvement initiatives, metrics and reporting, and lifecycle management processes.

The Skills & Expertise You Bring

• 3+ years of experience in detection engineering, incident response, threat hunting, or security operations in large enterprise environments.
• Practical experience working with common Endpoint, Identity, Network, Cloud & SaaS technologies, and associated logging.
• Proven experience developing detection content across multiple telemetry sources.
• Strong proficiency with at least one major SIEM/XDR ecosystem and advanced query authoring (Splunk SPL, Microsoft KQL, SQL strongly preferred).
• Solid understanding of adversary tradecraft with practical experience applying MITRE ATT&CK to detection design, validation, and coverage assessment.
• Ability to reason about attacker behaviors, detection logic trade-offs, and operational impacts rather than relying solely on static indicators.
• Experience using common scripting languages (e.g. Python, PowerShell) and to solve problems, automation tasks and interact with REST/GraphQL APIs.
• Strong written and verbal skills, with the ability to communicate effectively with both technical and non-technical stakeholders.

Preferred Qualifications

• GIAC GDAT, GCDA, GCTD, GCTI, GMON, GCIH, GCFA, GCPY
• Splunk Power User
• Microsoft SC-200, AZ-500
• CompTIA Cybersecurity Analyst (CySA+)

You’ll Love Working Here Because You Can

Join a team and culture where your voice matters; where every day, your work transforms our experiences to make lives better. As you put your skills to use, we’ll help you make an even bigger impact with learning experiences that can grow your technical AND leadership capabilities. You’ll be surprised by what this rock-solid organization has in store for you.

What We Offer You

Prudential is required by state specific laws to include the salary range for this role when hiring a resident in applicable locations. The salary range for this role is from $96,200.00 to $158,800.00. Specific pricing for the role may vary within the above range based on many factors including geographic location, candidate experience, and skills.

• Market competitive base salaries, with a yearly bonus potential at every level.
• Medical, dental, vision, life insurance, disability insurance, Paid Time Off (PTO), and leave of absences, such as parental and military leave.
• 401(k) plan with company match (up to 4%).
• Company-funded pension plan.
• Wellness Programs including up to $1,600 a year for reimbursement of items purchased to support personal wellbeing needs.
• Work/Life Resources to help support topics such as parenting, housing, senior care, finances, pets, legal matters, education, emotional and mental health, and career development.
• Education Benefit to help finance traditional college enrollment toward obtaining an approved degree and many accredited certificate programs.
• Employee Stock Purchase Plan: Shares can be purchased at 85% of the lower of two prices (Beginning or End of the purchase period).

Eligibility to participate in a discretionary annual incentive program is subject to the rules governing the program, whereby an award, if any, depends on various factors including, without limitation, individual and organizational performance. To find out more about our Total Rewards package, visit Work Life Balance | Prudential Careers. Some of the above benefits may not apply to part-time employees scheduled to work less than 20 hours per week.

Prudential Financial, Inc. of the United States is not affiliated with Prudential plc. which is headquartered in the United Kingdom.

Prudential is an equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, national origin, ancestry, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, genetics, disability, marital status, age, veteran status, domestic partner status, medical condition or any other characteristic protected by law.

If you need an accommodation to complete the application process, please email [e-mail].

If you are experiencing a technical issue with your application or an assessment, please email [e-mail] to request assistance.