Security Engineer II, Amazon GuardDuty
AI in this role
Research attack patterns, build attack simulations, and validate threat detection mechanisms for Amazon GuardDuty.
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
- 3+ years of non-internship professional software development experience
- 2+ years of non-internship design or architecture (design patterns, reliability and scaling) of new and existing systems experience
- 1+ years of software development engineer or related occupational experience
- 1+ years of designing and developing large-scale, multi-tiered, multi-threaded, embedded or distributed software applications, tools, systems, and services using: C#, C++, Java, or Perl experience
- 1+ years of Object Oriented Design experience
- Bachelor's degree or foreign equivalent in Computer Science, Engineering, Mathematics, or a related field
- Experience programming with at least one software programming language
Preferred qualifications
- 3+ years of full software development life cycle, including coding standards, code reviews, source control management, build processes, testing, and operations experience
- Bachelor's degree in computer science or equivalent
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, MA, Boston - 159,300.00 - 202,400.00 USD annually
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 70 out of 100 for how much of the daily work is AI. That makes it Works on AI (AI Level 3 of 4). The level is about AI in the job, not seniority.
Works on AI. The daily work is on AI products, without building the model.
- ●●●● 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. Open the description and count.
Prepare for this job
A free preview built only from this posting: what it asks for, what you could be asked in an interview, and how to adjust your resume.
Skills and AI tools this role asks for
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 red teaming 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 malware analysis was part of your work. What did you do?
- Walk me through how you've used Python in your day-to-day work.
Adapt your resume
- List these exact terms on your resume: Penetration Testing, Red Teaming, Threat Detection, Malware Analysis, and Python. 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.
- Show where AI is part of your daily process, not a one-off project — this role expects it to be a running habit.
Want an expert to read your CV for this job?
Free. Send your CV and the role you want next. We reply by email within 2 to 4 business days.
Get a free CV reviewGet new cybersecurity jobs (Works on AI ●●●○ or higher) by email
One email a week with the new cybersecurity jobs (Works on AI ●●●○ or higher), each rated for how much AI is in the work. No recruiter spam, unsubscribe in one click.
Free. One email a week. Unsubscribe in one click.
Similar roles
Security roles that work on AI, at other companies.
What kind of AI work fits you?
Answer 12 practical questions in about three minutes. Get a simple profile, the work it points to, and live roles to explore next.
Find my next step