Staff Threat Researcher
Bellevue · Remote · San Jose · Santa Clara · USA - Update Location · USD 122,500-175,000 · Posted Oct 1, 2026
At a glance
- Location
- Bellevue · Remote · San Jose · Santa Clara · USA - Update Location
- Salary
- USD 122,500-175,000 · Base salary
About the role
- We are looking for a Staff Threat Researcher to join our team.
- As our Staff Threat Researcher, you will serve as a highly technical subject matter expert on adversary tradecraft across endpoint, cloud, and identity environments.
- By transforming your deep technical discoveries into practical attack automations and scalable detection recommendations, you will bridge the gap between theoretical research and operational defense.
Responsibilities
- Scope and continuously refine research initiatives, applying an adversarial mindset to analyze emerging attack techniques, customer impact, and detection data sources across at least one operating system and major Cloud/SaaS providers like AWS, Microsoft 365, and Okta.
- Dive deep into the technical components and detection optics underlying specific threats to fully comprehend how adversaries control and manipulate variations of a given technique.
- Leverage your endpoint and cloud expertise to engineer automated attack code, write test code to validate threat coverage, and develop proofs of concept for new detections.
- Collaborate across Zscaler to develop new detection methodologies and engineering recommendations, working closely with detection engineers, intelligence analysts, and threat hunters to prioritize and refine deliverables.
- Document and present your research findings and operational deliverables in an accessible, actionable manner to internal and external audiences, while serving as a technical mentor for colleagues pursuing research.
Requirements
- Foundational understanding of AI/ML technologies and experience leveraging, securing, or positioning AI-driven solutions to optimize outcomes within your functional domain.
- Experience working with commercial Endpoint Detection & Response and/or Cloud-based detection platforms.
- Software development experience in at least one scripting language and one compiled language.
- Security experience in at least one cloud service provider and Cloud architectures.
- Established record of public, community engagement.
- Experience managing code with git/GitHub.
Preferred qualifications
- Proven ability to leverage AI technologies and workflows to drive measurable operational efficiency.
- An established record of public community engagement, such as conference talks, technical blog posts, or webinars.
Benefits
- Various health plans
- Time off plans for vacation and sick time
- Parental leave options
- Retirement options
- Education reimbursement
- In-office perks
Workplace
- This is a remote role.
Skills
- PowerShell
- Python
- C
- C++
- Go
- AWS
- GCP
- Azure
- Git
- GitHub
