Principal Detection and Response Engineer

Toronto

Get to know Okta

Okta is The World’s Identity Company. We free everyone to safely use any technology—anywhere, on any device or app. Our Workforce and Customer Identity Clouds enable secure yet flexible access, authentication, and automation that transforms how people move through the digital world, putting Identity at the heart of business security and growth. 

At Okta, we celebrate a variety of perspectives and experiences. We are not looking for someone who checks every single box - we’re looking for lifelong learners and people who can make us better with their unique experiences. 

Join our team! We’re building a world where Identity belongs to you.

Principal Detection and Response Engineer 

 

We safeguard Okta from threats and vulnerabilities that have the potential to disrupt our business or degrade our customers’ trust in us.

 

In addition to driving security in our enterprise environment and Okta service, the Security team is deeply entrenched in the Okta business. The team contributes to product roadmaps, promoting trust, research and other strategic aspects of Okta’s operations. We work across multiple functions, business partners and the research community. We are an engineering-focused team that seeks to stay on the cutting edge of security technology and the threat landscape.

The Role

Okta is seeking an experienced Principal Engineer, Detection and Response to take on a key role as a senior technical expert within Okta’s Cyber Defense team, reporting to the Senior Manager of Defensive Cyber Operations (Americas). You will be responsible for designing, implementing, and optimizing threat detection, incident response, and security automation solutions and ensuring they are continuously validated. You will work closely with engineers and leadership to enhance Okta’s ability to detect, investigate, and respond to sophisticated cyber threats.

Core Responsibilities Detection Engineering
  • Design, develop, and optimize security detection capabilities across Okta’s infrastructure and applications ensuring optimal coverage across the organization.
  • Build and refine advanced security detections using custom detection pipelines, EDR, cloud-native security tools, and behavioral analytics.
  • Partner with security engineers to improve alert fidelity and reduce false positives.
Incident Response & Threat Hunting
  • Serve as a senior escalation point for complex security incidents, leading technical investigations and root cause analyses.
  • Take part in the DCO watch roster triaging alerts escalated via automated processes, internal reports, and third-party notifications.
  • Develop and implement forensic analysis techniques to investigate security breaches and insider threats.
  • Conduct proactive threat-hunting activities using telemetry from across the enterprise.
Security Automation & Engineering
  • Architect and implement automation for security operations, including enrichment, triage, and response playbooks.
  • Integrate security tools with APIs and cloud-native services to improve response time.
  • Develop custom tooling and scripts to support detection and response capabilities.
Collaboration & Knowledge Sharing
  • Work closely with security engineers and leadership to shape the long-term vision for cyber security operations.
  • Mentor and coach engineers fostering a culture of technical excellence.
  • Contribute to threat intelligence sharing efforts and stay ahead of emerging attack techniques.
What does it take?

 

You’re a team player. You have great communications skills and a thirst for knowledge. You’re curious about systems and how they interact, knowing that to properly defend a system you must first understand how it works. You enjoy automating tasks and if you can’t find a tool for the job you create one. You’re calm under pressure and have a good internal compass for taking calculated risks.

 

If you don’t have a degree, you have equivalent experience that’s given you the foundational knowledge to understand complex computing environments.

 

You’re a leader. People want to work with you. You know what it takes to build a world-class defensive cyber capability and you’re passionate about helping make ours stronger. Your experience probably includes:

 

  • Leading, or contributing to, technology focused teams large or small.
  • Mentoring staff and providing development opportunities to build high performing teams.
  • Operating as, or providing support to, the incident commander or technical lead during cyber security incidents.
  • Developing advanced detection capabilities, working with detection-as-code, and automating the triage and response of alerts they generate.

 

Ideally you also have experience in several of the following areas:

 

  • Researching the tactics, techniques and procedures of sophisticated adversaries and hunting for evidence of them within an enterprise environment.
  • Developing detection and response validation techniques and automating tests to enable continuous assurance of defensive cyber capabilities.
  • Analysing critical systems to understand both how to break them and defend them against attack.
  • Working collaboratively within product and/or enterprise project teams, assisting to deliver large and complex technology solutions.

#LI-REMOTE

Below is the annual salary range for candidates located in Canada. Your actual salary will depend on factors such as your skills, qualifications, and experience. In addition, Okta offers equity (where applicable), bonus, and benefits, including health, dental, and vision insurance, RRSP with a match, healthcare spending, telemedicine, and paid leave (including PTO and parental leave) in accordance with our applicable plans and policies. To learn more about our Total Rewards program, please visit: https://rewards.okta.com/can.

The annual base salary range for this position for candidates located in Canada is between:$186,000—$278,000 CAD

What you can look forward to as an Full-Time Okta employee!

Okta cultivates a dynamic work environment, providing the best tools, technology and benefits to empower our employees to work productively in a setting that best and uniquely suits their needs. Each organization is unique in the degree of flexibility and mobility in which they work so that all employees are enabled to be their most creative and successful versions of themselves, regardless of where they live. Find your place at Okta today! https://www.okta.com/company/careers/.

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Okta
The foundation for secure connections between people and technology

Okta is the leading independent provider of identity for the enterprise. The Okta Identity Cloud enables organizations to securely connect the right people to the right technologies at the right time. With over 7,000 pre-built integrations to applications and infrastructure providers, Okta customers can easily and securely use the best technologies for their business. More than 19,300 organizations, including JetBlue, Nordstrom, Slack, T-Mobile, Takeda, Teach for America, and Twilio, trust Okta to help protect the identities of their workforces and customers.

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