Staff Security Research Engineer

Join to apply for the Staff Security Research Engineer role at Proofpoint

About Us We are the leader in human-centric cybersecurity. Half a million customers, including 87 of the Fortune 100, rely on Proofpoint to protect their organizations. We're driven by a mission to stay ahead of bad actors and safeguard the digital world. Join us in our pursuit to defend data and protect people.

How We Work At Proofpoint, you'll be part of a global team that breaks barriers to redefine cybersecurity, guided by our BRAVE core values : Bold in how we dream and innovate, Responsive to feedback, challenges, and opportunities, Accountable for results and best-in-class outcomes, Visionary in future-focused problem-solving, Exceptional in execution and impact.

Corporate Overview Proofpoint is a leading cybersecurity company protecting organizations' greatest assets and biggest risks. We help companies stop targeted threats, safeguard their data, and make users more resilient against cyber-attacks. Leading organizations rely on Proofpoint for people-centric security and compliance solutions across email, cloud, social media, and the web.

Staff Security Research Engineer

Your day-to-day

• Design and develop software using a variety of languages, primarily Python, with little external guidance, while providing technical leadership to guide other software engineers on the team
• Some skill in modifying existing web-based UI for internal tools to maintain and extend the sandbox submission and report UI for Proofpoint threat researchers to use
• Some work requires skill in writing C or C++ for low level interactions with the OS
• Develop and maintain web browser interaction capabilities using Chrome WebDriver
• Analyze and reverse engineer JavaScript that fingerprints web browser artifacts to identify sandbox web browsers or instrumentation, and innovate solutions to defeat those checks
• Familiarity with analyzing web front-end and the Document Object Model (DOM)
• Develop and maintain software for processing network traffic, including TLS decryption and processing PCAP files
• Work closely with threat analysts and detection engineers who research threat actors and write detection rules which run on the systems you develop
• As needed, create new detection languages and systems that allow threat researchers to develop detection rules
• Add features to existing threat detection languages to allow greater flexibility by threat researchers to automate interactions with websites and detect threat patterns
• Make use of AI Large Language Models as appropriate to enhance threat detection pipelines, produce samples to test evasion countermeasures, and decide when applying AI is beneficial
• Design and develop automation pipelines to turn manual tasks into automated scripts
• Stay abreast of a constantly evolving threat landscape
• Understand the latest tactics, techniques, and procedures used by threat actors to bypass detection environments, especially URL sandbox fingerprinting and evasion techniques
• As needed, provide expert assistance and support to threat researchers and analysts as they analyze phishing websites, threat detection evasion techniques, and security research or red team demonstrations of new evasion techniques
• As needed to support sandbox countermeasure development, reverse engineering malware executable files for Windows (note primary malware reverse engineering responsibilities rest on other job roles and are not expected regularly for this role)
• Apply critical thinking to identify the most efficient and effective way to mitigate threats and evasions
• Work effectively as part of a remote team using chat, video chat and conference calls
• Work with other engineering teams, defining requirements, for continuous improvement of critical detection capabilities

What You Bring To The Team

The following skills and experience are nice to have, but candidates lacking them should still apply

Additional Information

Why Proofpoint

As a customer-focused and driven-to-win organization with leading-edge products, Proofpoint offers a comprehensive compensation and benefits package and a culture of collaboration and appreciation. We are a multinational company with locations in many countries, contributing to Proofpoint's culture.

Base pay ranges vary by location and market, and the actual offer will be based on the candidate's knowledge, skills, and experience. This role may be eligible for variable compensation and / or equity. The company provides a range of benefits including flexible time off and well-being programs.

Seniority level

Employment type

Job function

Referrals increase your chances of interviewing at Proofpoint by 2x

Get notified about new Staff Research Engineer jobs in Nashville, TN.

J-18808-Ljbffr