Security Engineer II, Amazon GuardDuty

Amazon is hiring a Security Engineer II, Amazon GuardDuty in Seattle, United States. It pays $159k-$213k a year and Level rates it ; you can apply on Amazon.

Level's read on this job

On Level's scale, this cybersecurity role is Little AI ●○○○: aI is not part of the work.
The listed pay starts close to the typical cybersecurity posting on Level.
Tools and skills the posting cites include AWS, Guardduty and penetration testing.
Level classifies it as a mid-level role.
Level lists 20,000+ other open roles at Amazon.

AI in this role

Research attack patterns, build attack simulations, and validate threat detection mechanisms for Amazon GuardDuty.

AWSGuardduty

penetration-testingthreat-detectionsecurity-engineeringmalware-analysisred-teaming

Amazon GuardDuty is a customer facing threat detection service that was built to protect applications and services running in AWS. The service processes trillions of events and applies advanced analytics and machine learning to detect threats. If you are interested in learning about operating a service at massive scale and working alongside world class engineers, then this role is for you.

The Security Engineer position will be working on Amazon GuardDuty, which is a managed threat detection service that continuously monitors for malicious or unauthorized behavior to help you protect your AWS accounts and workloads. It monitors for activity such as unusual API calls or potentially unauthorized deployments that indicate a possible account compromise. GuardDuty also detects potentially compromised instances or reconnaissance by attackers. This is an advanced engineering team that is using cutting edge techniques to help customers assess, monitor and protect their cloud based resources. We are looking for an experienced security engineer with red team penetration testing skills to join this team to research, tune and validate our detection mechanisms.

A successful candidate for this role will have a deep understanding of both information security and computer science. If you can exploit at scale while remaining stealthy, identify and exploit misconfigurations in network resources, develop out of the box techniques, and communicate complex info in a digestible manner, you could be an ideal candidate.

The scope of this role includes researching attack patterns, building attack simulations, active testing, and mentoring data scientists and software engineers. In this role, you will interface with many internal security teams to keep up to date with the latest attack techniques.

Key job responsibilities
As a Security Engineer, you’ll:

- Recognize and safely utilize attacker tools, tactics and procedures
- Develop scripts, tools or methodologies to enhance red team capabilities
- Work with data scientists to help develop and test detections for complex exploitation patterns
- Build simulations to validate tools and techniques
- Advise broader team on current threat landscape, tools & techniques
- Ability to a detonate and analyze behavioral patterns of Malware
- Create Intellectual Property, influence others while demonstrating significant creativity and being vocally self-critical

Basic qualifications

- Bachelor's degree in computer science or equivalent
- Bachelor's degree in a STEM field (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics), or 2+ years of IT Security experience
- Knowledge of networking protocols such as HTTP, DNS and TCP/IP
- Knowledge of industry-based security vulnerabilities and remediation techniques

Preferred qualifications

- 2+ years of scripting, programming, or security code review in a common language, such as Python, Java or C++ experience
- Knowledge of command line tools to troubleshoot protocols, analyze log outputs, or automate basic tasks
- Knowledge of networking protocols such as HTTP(S), DNS, and TCP/IP
- Knowledge of networking protocols, to include HTTP(S), DNS, and TCP/IP
- Experience with AWS products and services
- Experience with programming languages such as Python, Java, C++

Amazon is an equal opportunity employer and does not discriminate on the basis of protected veteran status, disability, or other legally protected status.

Our inclusive culture empowers Amazonians to deliver the best results for our customers. If you have a disability and need a workplace accommodation or adjustment during the application and hiring process, including support for the interview or onboarding process, please visit https://amazon.jobs/content/en/how-we-hire/accommodations for more information. If the country/region you’re applying in isn’t listed, please contact your Recruiting Partner.

The base salary range for this position is listed below. Your Amazon package will include sign-on payments and restricted stock units (RSUs). Final compensation will be determined based on factors including experience, qualifications, and location. Amazon also offers comprehensive benefits including health insurance (medical, dental, vision, prescription, Basic Life & AD&D insurance and option for Supplemental life plans, EAP, Mental Health Support, Medical Advice Line, Flexible Spending Accounts, Adoption and Surrogacy Reimbursement coverage), 401(k) matching, paid time off, and parental leave. Learn more about our benefits at https://amazon.jobs/en/benefits.

USA, NY, New York - 159,300.00 - 212,800.00 USD annually
USA, WA, Seattle - 159,300.00 - 202,400.00 USD annually

How we rate this

Security Engineer II, Amazon GuardDuty at Amazon rates 30 out of 100 for how much of the daily work is AI. That makes it Little AI (AI Level 1 of 4). The level is about AI in the job, not seniority.

Classification

Little AI. AI is not part of the work.

●●●● Builds AI80 to 100
●●●○ Works on AI60 to 79
●●○○ Uses AI40 to 59
●○○○ Little AI0 to 39

Levels come from how often the tools, models and workflows of the role are named in the posting itself. Read the description and count the AI tools, models and workflows it names.

Key facts

Security Engineer II, Amazon GuardDuty is an open job at Amazon.
Level rates this role AI Level 1 of 4: Little AI.
The listed salary is $159k-$213k a year.
The role is based in US, WA, Seattle.
The job was posted on September 11, 2026.
Seniority: mid.
Applications are handled by Amazon. Apply on Amazon

Prepare for this job

Built from this posting and from similar jobs on Level.

Skills and AI tools this role asks for

Penetration TestingThreat DetectionSecurity EngineeringMalware AnalysisRed TeamingAWSGuardduty

Also common in cybersecurity jobs at this level

Azure Google Cloud Kubernetes Terraform LLM AI agents

Pay

This job starts at: $159k
Typical cybersecurity job: $160k

This posting starts close to the typical cybersecurity job. See cybersecurity jobs

Questions you could be asked

Tell me about a project where penetration testing was part of your work. What did you do?
Tell me about a project where threat detection was part of your work. What did you do?
Tell me about a project where security engineering was part of your work. What did you do?
Tell me about a project where malware analysis was part of your work. What did you do?
Tell me about a project where red teaming was part of your work. What did you do?

Adapt your resume

List these exact terms on your resume: Penetration Testing, Threat Detection, Security Engineering, Malware Analysis, and Red Teaming. An applicant tracking system matches the wording, not the idea.
Attach one line of real, concrete experience to at least one of them. A tool named with nothing behind it rarely survives a human read.

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