Key Responsibilities and Required Skills for Security Automation Engineer

🎯 Role Definition

Are you passionate about using code to solve complex security challenges? Do you thrive on building elegant solutions that eliminate repetitive tasks and empower security teams to focus on what truly matters? If so, we want you on our team!

This role requires a highly motivated and innovative Security Automation Engineer to join our growing cybersecurity organization. In this pivotal role, you will be the driving force behind our security automation strategy, responsible for designing, developing, and maintaining the systems that form the backbone of our modern Security Operations Center (SOC). You will work with cutting-edge technologies, including SOAR, SIEM, and cloud security platforms, to create robust workflows and playbooks that accelerate threat detection, investigation, and response. This is a unique opportunity to make a significant impact on our security posture and shape the future of our security operations.

📈 Career Progression

Typical Career Path

Entry Point From:

Security Analyst / SOC Analyst
Software Engineer (with a security interest)
DevOps or Site Reliability Engineer
Systems Administrator

Advancement To:

Senior Security Automation Engineer
Security Architect (Automation & Orchestration)
DevSecOps Lead
Manager, Security Operations

Lateral Moves:

Cloud Security Engineer
Threat Intelligence Engineer
Senior Incident Responder

Core Responsibilities

Primary Functions

Design, develop, and maintain complex automation playbooks and workflows within our Security Orchestration, Automation, and Response (SOAR) platform (e.g., Cortex XSOAR, Splunk SOAR, Sentinel) to streamline incident response processes.
Engineer and implement custom scripts (primarily in Python) to integrate disparate security tools and data sources via APIs, enriching security alerts and enabling automated actions.

Develop and manage a robust library of automation code, ensuring it is version-controlled (using Git), well-documented, and reusable across the security organization.

Automate the end-to-end lifecycle of security alerts, from initial detection and triage in the SIEM to evidence gathering, containment, and ticket resolution.
Build and maintain integrations between our SIEM platform (e.g., Splunk, Elastic, QRadar) and other security tools to facilitate the seamless flow of data for analysis and response.
Collaborate with the SOC and Incident Response teams to identify high-value opportunities for automation, focusing on reducing mean time to detect (MTTD) and mean time to respond (MTTR).
Proactively identify and automate the remediation of common vulnerabilities and misconfigurations discovered through our vulnerability management and cloud security posture management tools.
Develop custom solutions to automate evidence and artifact collection from various endpoints, logs, and cloud services to support forensic investigations and incident analysis.
Translate complex manual security procedures and threat hunting queries into reliable, repeatable, and scalable automated workflows.
Create and maintain detailed technical documentation for all developed automations, integrations, and processes to ensure team-wide understanding and support.
Participate in the selection, evaluation, and implementation of new security technologies, with a specific focus on their automation and integration capabilities.
Enhance our threat detection capabilities by automating the ingestion, parsing, and correlation of new threat intelligence feeds and indicators of compromise (IOCs).
Build self-service automation tools and portals that empower security analysts and other teams to safely execute predefined security tasks and queries.
Integrate security automation into CI/CD pipelines to create a robust DevSecOps culture, enabling automated security testing and validation before deployment.
Monitor the health, performance, and reliability of the automation infrastructure, promptly troubleshooting and resolving any issues that arise in production.
Develop and track key performance indicators (KPIs) and metrics to measure the effectiveness and ROI of security automation initiatives.
Conduct regular reviews and optimizations of existing automation playbooks to improve their efficiency, resilience, and alignment with evolving threats.
Automate security reporting processes, generating dashboards and reports for various audiences, from technical analysts to executive leadership.
Serve as the subject matter expert on security automation, providing guidance, training, and support to other members of the cybersecurity team.
Research emerging trends and techniques in security automation and DevSecOps to continuously improve our capabilities and stay ahead of attackers.
Design and implement automated security controls and response actions within our public cloud environments (AWS, Azure, GCP) to address cloud-native threats.

Secondary Functions

Support ad-hoc data requests and exploratory data analysis.
Contribute to the organization's data strategy and roadmap.
Collaborate with business units to translate data needs into engineering requirements.
Participate in sprint planning and agile ceremonies within the data engineering team.

Required Skills & Competencies

Hard Skills (Technical)

Advanced proficiency in scripting and programming, especially with Python, for the purpose of API integration and automation.
Deep, hands-on experience with at least one major Security Orchestration, Automation, and Response (SOAR) platform like Palo Alto Networks Cortex XSOAR, Splunk SOAR, or Microsoft Sentinel.
Strong practical knowledge of working with RESTful APIs, JSON, and webhooks to integrate various security tools and platforms.
Experience with Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) systems such as Splunk, Elastic, or QRadar, including query language and API usage.
Familiarity with DevOps principles and tools, including Git for version control and CI/CD pipeline concepts (e.g., Jenkins, GitLab CI).
Knowledge of security in public cloud environments (AWS, Azure, GCP), including IAM, security groups, and cloud-native security services.
Understanding of core cybersecurity domains, including incident response, threat intelligence, vulnerability management, and network security.
Experience with containerization technologies like Docker and orchestration platforms like Kubernetes is a significant plus.
Competency in Linux and Windows operating systems from a security and administration perspective.
Ability to write and maintain clear, concise technical documentation for code, integrations, and processes.

Soft Skills

Exceptional analytical and problem-solving skills with a creative and solution-oriented mindset.
Strong collaboration and interpersonal skills, with the ability to work effectively with both technical and non-technical teams.
Excellent written and verbal communication skills, capable of explaining complex technical concepts to diverse audiences.
A high degree of self-motivation and the ability to work independently on complex projects with minimal supervision.
A continuous learning mindset, staying current with the evolving threat landscape and automation technologies.

Education & Experience

Educational Background

Minimum Education:

Bachelor's Degree in a relevant field or equivalent practical industry experience.

Preferred Education:

Master's Degree in a technical or security-focused field.
Relevant industry certifications (e.g., GPYC, GCIA, GCIH, DEV504).

Relevant Fields of Study:

Computer Science
Cybersecurity
Information Technology
Software Engineering

Experience Requirements

Typical Experience Range:

3-5+ years in a hands-on cybersecurity or software development role, with at least 2 years focused specifically on automation.

Preferred:

Proven track record of successfully designing and deploying automation workflows in a production SOC or security environment.
Demonstrable experience building integrations between security tools from the ground up using Python and APIs.
Experience operating in an Agile development methodology.