Security Engineer - Detection & Response

We're here to help the smartest minds on the planet build Superintelligence. The labs pushing the edge? They run on Lambda. Our gear trains and serves their models, our infrastructure scales with them, and we move fast to keep up. If you want to work on massive, world-changing AI deployments with people who love action and hard problems, we're the place to be.

If you'd like to build the world's best deep learning cloud, join us. 

*Note: This position requires presence in our San Francisco office location 4 days per week; Lambda’s designated work from home day is currently Tuesday.

About the Role

Lambda Security protects some of the world's most valuable digital assets: invaluable training data, model weights representing immense computational investments, and the sensitive inputs required to leverage best of breed AI models. We're responsible for securing every byte that powers breakthrough artificial intelligence.

As a Security Engineer on the Detection & Response team, you'll be a core technical contributor building detection capabilities, driving incident response, and eliminating firefighting everywhere possible.

Reporting to the Senior Manager of Detection & Response and working within our specialized Detection & Response team, you'll build and operate detection systems, lead incident investigations, develop threat intelligence capabilities, and contribute to red team activities. You'll coordinate closely with Security Technical Program Management to drive prioritized security remediations across the organization, ensuring that critical threats are addressed systematically rather than reactively.

You will work on implementing enterprise-grade detection capabilities, automating incident response workflows, developing threat hunting programs, and building tooling that enables 24/7 security operations. You'll have unique access to LLMs hosted on our own infrastructure to implement and experiment with AI-powered detection and response capabilities that wouldn't be possible anywhere else.

If you thrive on hunting threats, responding to incidents, and building detection systems that protect cutting-edge AI infrastructure at scale, we'd love to talk.

We value diverse backgrounds, experiences, and skills, and we are excited to hear from candidates who can bring unique perspectives to our team. If you do not exactly meet this description but believe you may be a good fit, please still apply and help us understand your readiness for this role. Your application is not a waste of our time.

What You’ll Do

Incident Response & Operations:

• Response: Qualify reports and lead response activities from initial triage through remediation and retrospective.

• Automation: Develop tools and workflows that accelerate incident response and reduce mean time to resolution.

• Coordination: Drive prioritization and remediation of security findings across engineering teams in coordination with Security Technical Program Management.

• 24/7 Operations: Participate in on-call rotation, ensuring rapid response to security events that threaten customer data or operations.

Threat Detection & Analysis:

• Detection Engineering: Create and tune detection rules and alerts that identify threats across Lambda's infrastructure before they impact customers or revenue.

• Threat Intelligence: Research and operationalize threat intelligence specific to AI infrastructure and Lambda's unique threat landscape.

• Threat Hunts: Proactively search for indicators of compromise and suspicious activity that automated detection might miss.

• Explore AI-driven Security: Leverage Lambda's hosted LLMs to create AI-powered threat detection, automated triage, and intelligent alert correlation.

• Offensive Security: Support periodic tabletop exercises and red team activities to test and improve detection coverage and response capabilities.

What We Think a Candidate Needs to Demonstrate to Succeed

• Have 3+ years of hands-on security engineering experience and 5+ years of total engineering experience, with demonstrated impact in detection and incident response.

• Thrive in high-speed, high-ambiguity startup environments where you build security capabilities while responding to immediate threats.

• Deep technical expertise with security tooling including SIEM/SOAR platforms, EDR solutions, vulnerability scanners, and cloud security monitoring.

• Excel at solving problems in Python, Go, or similar languages, building automations that scale security impact.

• Proven ability to work effectively with cross-functional technical teams both with and without authority (we're all on the same team!).

• Strong Linux systems experience in both bare metal and cloud environments, understanding infrastructure from kernel to application layer.

• Excellence at translating security concerns into business risk, enabling stakeholders to make informed decisions.

Nice to Have

• You've built or contributed to detection engineering programs or incident response capabilities.

• Experience with threat intelligence platforms, threat hunting methodologies, or purple team exercises.

• Deep experience with specific SIEM platforms (Splunk, Elastic, Chronicle) or SOAR solutions.

• Experience driving or providing significant evidence for compliance audits, such as SOC 2, ISO 27001, PCI-DSS, HIPAA/HITECH, or FedRAMP.

• You've developed detection content shared with the security community (Sigma rules, YARA, etc.).

• Experience responding to incidents in both cloud (AWS, GCP, Azure) and bare metal environments.

• Security certifications like GCIH, GNFA, GCIA, or similar that demonstrate incident response expertise.

• Experience with forensics, malware analysis, or reverse engineering.

• Excitement about leveraging our direct access to state-of-the-art LLMs to enhance detection and response—imagine AI-powered threat hunting, automated incident triage, and intelligent alert correlation at a scale only possible when you host the AI infrastructure yourself.

Salary Range Information

The annual salary range for this position has been set based on market data and other factors. However, a salary higher or lower than this range may be appropriate for a candidate whose qualifications differ meaningfully from those listed in the job description.

About Lambda

• Founded in 2012, ~400 employees (2025) and growing fast

• We offer generous cash & equity compensation

• Our investors include Andra Capital, SGW, Andrej Karpathy, ARK Invest, Fincadia Advisors, G Squared, In-Q-Tel (IQT), KHK & Partners, NVIDIA, Pegatron, Supermicro, Wistron, Wiwynn, US Innovative Technology, Gradient Ventures, Mercato Partners, SVB, 1517, Crescent Cove.

• We are experiencing extremely high demand for our systems, with quarter over quarter, year over year profitability

• Our research papers have been accepted into top machine learning and graphics conferences, including NeurIPS, ICCV, SIGGRAPH, and TOG

• Health, dental, and vision coverage for you and your dependents

• Wellness and Commuter stipends for select roles

• 401k Plan with 2% company match (USA employees)

• Flexible Paid Time Off Plan that we all actually use

A Final Note:

You do not need to match all of the listed expectations to apply for this position. We are committed to building a team with a variety of backgrounds, experiences, and skills.

Equal Opportunity Employer

Lambda is an Equal Opportunity employer. Applicants are considered without regard to race, color, religion, creed, national origin, age, sex, gender, marital status, sexual orientation and identity, genetic information, veteran status, citizenship, or any other factors prohibited by local, state, or federal law.