Vulnerability Engineer / Researcher

Censys knows the Cloud and the Internet better than anyone else. Attack Surface Management provides customers with an attacker-centric view of all externally facing Cloud and Internet assets to extend visibility, prioritize, and remediate the most critical risk exposures that will actually lead to a breach. Our daily IPv4 scans and the world’s largest SSL/TLS Certificate database enables customers with the most accurate and continuously updated attack surfaces. Enterprise security teams leverage Censys to keep pace with the speed of the business and gain an advantage on the rapidly evolving cyber-attack threats.

We are a rapidly growing cyber security startup based in Ann Arbor, Michigan with a 100% fully remote team. Our innovation is fueled by the team’s global perspectives and diverse backgrounds. We welcome healthy debate, constructive conversations, and outside-the-box thinking to ensure we are moving fast, learning things, and iterating quickly.

Role Summary:

We’re looking to hire a Vulnerability Engineer and Researcher who will help to extend Censys’ ability globally to fingerprint Internet vulnerabilities. This is hybrid role that involves both software development and cybersecurity research:

On the software development side, you will help improve our risk detection engine and vulnerability database by building detectors for common vulnerabilities and emerging threats. You will utilize Censys risk fingerprinting tools, scanning infrastructure, and frameworks to productionize risk identification for our Enterprise Data Sets and Attack Surface Management platform. You will work with an existing software engineering team.

On the security research side, you will help conduct reconnaissance to expand our capabilities to capture and monitor internet resources for risks. More generally, you will collaborate with Product Management and Engineering to develop Censys’ risk identification strategy and process. Finally, you will work as a member of our research team to produce research content for the broader cybersecurity community and to share results in blog posts, in webinars, and at industry events like Black Hat, BSides, and DEFCON.

This is a great opportunity for a software engineer who wants to take their cybersecurity knowledge to the next level. Due to the existing team with senior members eager to mentor, you will be supported in your development.

Role Responsibilities:

• Extend capabilities of our risk detection engine by prototyping or adding new vulnerability or misconfiguration detections to the product
• Review existing risks to proactively identify ways to tune for higher accuracy (fewer false positives / false negatives)
• Review existing risks to proactively improve risk implementation and architecture
• Respond to customer reported false positives to improve the accuracy of existing risks
• Submit feature requests for the Censys risk detection engine and, in time, contribute to its codebase
• Maintain a close relationship with Product Management and Engineering
• Occasionally support the Customer Success and Sales Engineering teams with customer or partnership calls to provide technical expertise and sales enablement
• Occasionally work on blog posts based to help promote the brand and thought leadership
• Identify, submit proposals, and present at industry events such as Black Hat, DEF CON, and BSides

Desired Qualifications:

• 1+ years of experience as software developer
• 1+ years of experience with network protocols and/or cybersecurity 
• Working knowledge of data formats, querying large datasets, and performing aggregations and analysis using SQL
• Strong verbal, written, and presentation communication skills
• A passion for continuous learning and curiosity

Nice-to-Have Qualifications:

• • Proficiency in BigQuery or past experience with querying large datasets on other platforms
  • Experience with risk and vulnerability management and the ability to create and help integrate risks into public datasets, frameworks, and APIs used by customer facing applications
  • Familiarity with vulnerability databases such as MITRE, OWASP, and NIST
  • Able to understand the high level architecture of a security stack for a large enterprise and how adversaries will look for holes in it
  • Hands on experience with creating security detections, policies or automation in one or more of the following tools: Firewall, Routers, WAF (Web Application Firewall) , SIEM, IDS, Application Security, SOAR, XDR, Cloud Security 

Our target salary range for this role is between $110,000 USD and $140,000 USD + bonus eligibility and equity.

We are located in Ann Arbor, Michigan, however we are open to hiring this position fully remote, with travel opportunities to meet customers and connect with colleagues.

Don't meet every single requirement? Studies have shown that women and people of color are less likely to apply to jobs unless they feel they meet every qualification. At Censys we are dedicated to building a diverse, inclusive, and authentic workplace - so if you're excited about this role but your past experience doesn't align perfectly with every listed requirement in the job description, we encourage you to apply anyways. You may be exactly who we need to fill this role or others! 

We value diversity and are committed to creating an inclusive environment for all employees. Censys is an equal opportunity employer.