Senior Security Engineer, Security Incident Response Team

Gitlab; Remote; ZAR 1 325 000 - 1 657 000; Full time

Job summary

A leading technology company in South Africa is seeking a Senior Security Engineer to join their Security Incident Response Team. This role involves managing security incidents, improving operational efficiency through automation, and collaborating with various teams to enhance security capabilities. Ideal candidates will have experience with incident response processes, cloud platforms, and be proficient in Python. The position supports a flexible work environment and offers competitive benefits.

Benefits

Benefits for health and well-being

Flexible Paid Time Off

Growth and development budget

Parental leave

Equity Compensation & Employee Stock Purchase Plan

All-remote, asynchronous work environment

Qualifications

• Ability to lead incident response independently.
• Experience or willingness to learn cloud-based security.
• Proactive in identifying and investigating threats.

Responsibilities

• Lead security incident response in a global rotation.
• Create and maintain incident response documentation.
• Conduct post-incident analysis to strengthen program.
• Design and implement automated security processes.
• Collaborate across teams to develop security capabilities.

Skills

Incident response processes

SIEM / security logging tools

Cloud platforms (GCP/AWS)

Python programming

Technical documentation

Forensic analysis

Job description

Senior Security Engineer, Security Incident Response Team

An Overview Of This Role

As a Senior Security Engineer on GitLab's Security Incident Response Team (SIRT), you will be on the frontline of protecting both GitLab and the company from security threats.

Role

This role follows a compressed four‑day workweek, with standard full‑time hours spread across four extended shifts.

To ensure 24/7 security coverage, team members work one of two schedules:

• Sunday through Wednesday
• Wednesday through Saturday

Your primary focus will be detecting and responding to security incidents during your scheduled shifts.

You’ll work extensively with our incident response automation tools to investigate, analyze, and resolve security events.

You’ll also have opportunities to contribute to our security tooling and automation, helping to improve our detection and response capabilities.

In this role, you’ll develop expertise using our security infrastructure to monitor for threats, analyze potential incidents, and coordinate response efforts across teams.

This position is ideal for someone who wants to grow their incident response skills while working within GitLab’s established security framework.

You’ll learn to think both tactically and strategically about security, while gaining hands‑on experience handling real‑world incidents.

Successful Security Engineers thrive in high‑pressure environments, remaining calm while following prepared runbooks and thinking critically about security challenges.

In this role, you will learn to think like both an attacker and defender, developing proactive and preventative security measures to keep GitLab and its users' data safe in our ever‑changing threat landscape.

Through hands‑on experience and mentorship, you’ll develop the skills needed to anticipate security risks, respond effectively to incidents, and contribute to GitLab’s robust security posture.

Find out more about the Security Operations team and responsibilities:

• Incident Response
• Trust and Safety
• Red Team
• Threat Intelligence
• Signals Engineering

What You’ll Do

• Lead security incident response in our 24/7 global rotation, managing incidents from detection through containment and recovery
• Create and maintain comprehensive incident response documentation, including runbooks and standard procedures
• Conduct post‑incident analysis through RCA and lessons‑learned reviews to strengthen our incident response program
• Design and implement automated security processes to improve operational efficiency and reduce manual intervention
• Drive continuous improvement by identifying security gaps and implementing advanced detection and response capabilities
• Collaborate across GitLab teams to develop new security capabilities and deliver technical projects that enhance our infrastructure

What You’ll Bring

• Demonstrated ability to learn and lead incident response processes independently
• Experience with SIEM / security logging tools
• Experience with cloud platforms (GCP and/or AWS)
• Python programming skills or strong willingness to learn
• A passion for technical documentation
• Proactive approach to identifying and investigating security threats
• Interest in conducting forensic analysis of infected hosts
• Experience or strong desire to learn cloud‑based security investigations

About The Team

Security Operations is a globally distributed team of engineers split across 3 core regions—AMER, APAC and EMEA—and is at the forefront of security events that impact both GitLab and its users.

We are both reactive and proactive, leading security investigations, incident response support, and cyber threat analysis and detection‑and‑response engineering.

Even though we’re a global team, we work together in a cross‑regional manner and have automation and processes to facilitate collaboration when resolving incidents, handovers general collaboration for project work as well.

How GitLab Will Support You

• Benefits to support your health, finances, and well‑being
• All‑remote, asynchronous work environment
• Flexible Paid Time Off
• Team Member Resource Groups
• Equity Compensation & Employee Stock Purchase Plan
• Growth and development budget
• Parental leave

Home office support

GitLab is proud to be an equal opportunity workplace and is an affirmative action employer. GitLab’s policies and practices relating to recruitment, employment, career development and advancement, promotion, and retirement are based solely on merit, regardless of race, color, religion, ancestry, sex (including pregnancy, lactation, sexual orientation, gender identity, or gender expression), national origin, age, citizenship, marital status, mental or physical disability, genetic information (including family medical history), discharge status from the military, protected veteran status, or any other basis protected by law.

GitLab will not tolerate discrimination or harassment based on any of these characteristics.

See also GitLab’s EEO Policy and EEO is the Law.

If you have a disability or special need that requires accommodation, please let us know during the recruiting process.