Senior Security Engineer; Detection & Response

Who You Are

Justworks is looking for an experienced security engineer skilled in detection and response, who can help enhance and mature Justworks’ Security. As a Senior Detection Engineer, you’ll design, build, and maintain the detection logic that powers our platform, conduct proactive threat hunting, and drive continuous improvements across our detection and incident handling workflows. You’ll collaborate closely with IT, Engineering, Platform, and other members of the Security team to identify attacker behaviors, build high‑fidelity detections, and strengthen our defenses.

• Build, tune, and deploy high‑quality detections across our platform
• Develop and refine detections using telemetry from EDR, threat intel, endpoint and cloud posture platforms, and native AWS cloud services
• Conduct proactive threat hunting to uncover threat actor behaviors and detection gaps
• Lead security event & incident handling, including triage, investigation, containment guidance, and post‑incident improvements
• Build automation and tooling to reduce manual effort and improve detection accuracy
• Drive process improvements across detection engineering, incident response, and telemetry workflows
• Collaborate with Engineering to ensure high‑quality logging and visibility across AWS environments
• Explore and prototype AI‑assisted detection and response capabilities
• Contribute to internal playbooks, documentation, and detection engineering best practices
• Design and conduct table‑top exercises to validate readiness and strengthen response processes

Note:

This position will require participation in an on‑call rotation.

• 5+ years of hands‑on experience in detection engineering, threat hunting, security event analysis, and incident response
• Strong understanding of attacker behaviors, malware techniques, and modern threat landscapes
• Hands‑on experience with EDR platforms (event analysis, detections, hunting)
• Proficiency with AWS security and logging services (Cloud Trail, Guard Duty, IAM, VPC Flow Logs, Lambda, etc.)
• Experience designing and conducting attack & defend (table‑top) exercises
• Demonstrated ability to improve processes, reduce friction, and automate repetitive tasks
• Interest in how AI/ML can enhance detection, hunting, and response workflows
• Strong communication skills and comfort working cross‑functionally in a fast‑paced environment

This role is based in our New York City headquarters. The base wage range for this position will be  167,500 -  235,000 annually.

We’re proud to be an equal‑opportunity employer open to all qualified applicants regardless of race, color, ancestry, religion, sex, national origin, sexual orientation, age, citizenship, marital or familial status, disability, pregnancy, gender identity or expression, veteran status, genetic information, or any other legally protected status. Justworks is fully dedicated to providing necessary support to candidates with disabilities who may require reasonable accommodations, and we also provide reasonable accommodations to employees based on their sincerely held religious beliefs, as well as for other covered reasons consistent with applicable federal, state, and local laws.

If you’re in need of a reasonable accommodation, please reach out to us at