Detection & Response, Security Engineer at Workos

About WorkOS 🚀 WorkOS builds modern developer tools and APIs that make it easy for companies to become Enterprise Ready. Our platform powers authentication, identity, authorization, and other critical infrastructure that developers need to securely scale their products to large organizations. We recently raised a $100M Series C, valuing the company at $2B, led by Meritech and Sapphire with participation from Greenoaks, Craft, Abstract, and Audacious. WorkOS powers enterprise features for many of the fastest-growing AI companies, including OpenAI, Cursor, and Perplexity, Vercel, and Plaid. As AI reshapes software, WorkOS is at the frontier of Human and Agent Authentication, Identity, and Access Control—helping companies answer a new critical question: who are your agents, and what are they allowed to do? Our fast-growing customer base includes hundreds of modern software companies building the next generation of enterprise-ready products. About the Security Team The Security team at WorkOS is responsible for keeping the data and identities of hundreds of millions of customers secure. Security is fundamental to our products, and customer trust is the foundation of our success. We are a highly collaborative group with a strong engineering mindset. Our security program is shaped by hands-on experience attacking and defending systems, and applying lessons from across the industry. We embrace the latest advancements in practices and tooling that make modern security teams effective. Today, our team spans product security, cloud security, and GRC. We understand our product deeply, and we partner with an MDR provider for 24/7/365 detection and response coverage. About the Role We are looking for a Detection & Response Security Engineer to take our D&R capabilities to the next level. WorkOS has core security telemetry in place across SIEM, EDR, cloud and identity. What we are looking for now is expertise in writing custom detections tuned to our environment, building alerting pipelines, investigating incidents in depth, and further expanding our coverage across corporate systems and our product platform. You will own detection engineering and help lead incident response: designing, building, and continuously improving threat detections across WorkOS infrastructure, corporate systems, and (over time) the WorkOS product itself. You will partner with our MDR team while building out our internal function. You will also drive threat hunting and security operations maturity. This is a zero-to-one role. You will shape the strategy, choose the approach, and build the systems. We want someone who is equal parts security practitioner and software engineer. This is a remote position, open to candidates based in Canada or the United States. What You'll Do - Build out our detection engineering capability. Design and implement detection logic across our SIEM, EDR, cloud security tools and identity systems. We want you to write detections as code — durable, tested, and version-controlled. - Own security incident response. Lead and support security incident investigations using data analytics, log analysis, and system forensics across corporate and production environments. Build playbooks and runbooks for repeatable response. - Extend detection into the product. Instrument additional application-level telemetry across the WorkOS platform to detect abuse patterns, anomalous authentication activity, and threats that target our customers' identities. - Build tooling and automation. Develop scripts, integrations, and SOAR workflows to automate detection, enrichment, and response activities. We value engineering solutions over manual processes. - Improve visibility and logging. Work with engineering and infrastructure teams to ensure the right logs are collected, normalized, and available. Identify gaps in monitoring coverage and close them. - Partner with our MDR provider. Collaborate to validate detections, tune rules, and coordinate on incidents. Grow our internal capability over time while maintaining the partnership. - Contribute to security operations maturity. Help build on-call rotation practices, tabletop exercises, post-incident reviews, and operational metrics for the security team. - Participate in a shared on-call rotation for security incidents, with occasional evening or weekend availability for critical events. Who You Are - A builder, not just an operator. You write detection logic, build pipelines, and create tools. You are not looking for a role where you triage alerts all day; you want to design the systems that generate and respond to them with high signal and low noise. - An engineer with a security focus. You want to understand problems before solving them, and you prefer durable fixes over quick patches. You are proficient in at least one programming language (Python, Go, or similar) and comfortable working with infrastructure-as-code, APIs, and CI/CD systems. - Experienced in detection engineering. You have designed, built, and tuned detections in a SIEM or similar platform. You understand how to translate threat intelligence and attacker TTPs into actionable detection logic. - Comfortable across corporate and cloud environments. You have experience with EDR, identity systems, cloud security (AWS), and network telemetry. You can investigate incidents across endpoints, SaaS applications, and cloud infrastructure. - Pragmatic about risk. You reason clearly about what matters, prioritize based on real-world threat models, and communicate risk to both technical and non-technical audiences. - Collaborative and autonomous. You work well with engineering, infrastructure, and IT teams. You can own projects end-to-end in a fast-moving startup environment without extensive direction. Qualifications - 5+ years of experience in security engineering, detection engineering, incident response, or a related technical security role. - Strong engineering fundamentals; ideally a computer science or engineering degree or equivalent industry experience (software engineering, SRE, network engineering). - Proficiency in Python, Go, or another general-purpose programming language. - Hands-on experience with SIEM platforms (Panther, Splunk, Elastic, or similar) — writing detection rules, building log pipelines, and investigating alerts. - Experience with EDR technologies (SentinelOne, CrowdStrike, or similar) and endpoint investigation. - Familiarity with cloud security fundamentals (AWS IAM, networking, Kubernetes basics). - Experience with incident response in production and/or corporate environments. - Strong written and verbal communication skills. BONUS: - Experience with Detection-as-Code practices (version-controlled, tested detections). - Familiarity with SOAR platforms and security automation. - Experience with identity/authentication systems (Okta, SAML, OIDC) — highly relevant given our product domain. - Prior experience building a D&R function from scratch. - Experience at a developer tools, identity/auth, or infrastructure company. Benefits (US Only) 💖 At WorkOS, we offer resources that emphasize personal and familial well-being. We offer healthcare coverage for you and your family, including medical, dental, and vision. We offer parental leave, paid-time off and fully remote working arrangements. Benefits include: - Competitive pay - Substantial equity grants - Healthcare insurance (Medical, Dental and Vision) for you and your family - 401k matching - Wellness and fitness monthly allowances - PTO + paid holidays + unlimited sick leave - Autonomy and flexibility with remote work Please inquire directly with our recruiting team for benefits available to those working outside the US. Equal Opportunity Employer WorkOS is an equal opportunity employer, committed to diversity and inclusiveness. We will consider all qualified applicants without regard to race, color, nationality, gender, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, religion, disability or age. We may use artificial intelligence (AI) tools to support parts of the hiring process, such as reviewing applications, analyzing resumes, or assessing responses. These tools assist our recruitment team but do not replace human judgment. Final hiring decisions are ultimately made by humans. If you would like more information about how your data is processed, please contact us.