Staff Security Engineer - Engineer

About the role and team 

Engineering at Uber means building for real-world impact under real-world constraints. The problems are complex, the systems are massive, and the pace is fast. You’ll need to make smart decisions with imperfect information — and own them. If you think in systems, stay calm under pressure, and care about building things that actually work — this is where you’ll grow.

As a Staff Security Engineer, you will safeguard user-facing products by leveraging AI and ML to identify evolving threats. You will architect and scale industry-leading solutions while navigating the "messy" reality of heterogeneous data and shifting adversary behaviors. This role is for a technical leader who can stay steady during high-stakes incident investigations and move with urgency to build proactive security frameworks.

What you’ll do 

• Architect and scale sophisticated security services and frameworks designed to neutralize evolving threats across Uber's global ecosystem.
• Navigate high-stakes incident investigations by performing in-depth threat analysis and driving root cause analysis across complex, hybrid-cloud environments.
• Innovate and write high-quality, modular code to automate detection logic and scale response capabilities using Python, Go, or Ruby.
• Champion engineering excellence by establishing standards for detection rules, query optimization, and technical documentation within the organization.
• Collaborate across disciplines—including Network Ops, Incident Response, and Product—to influence security posture without direct authority.
• Own the transition from research to production by experimenting with new AI/ML techniques to continuously enhance our cyber defense capabilities.

Basic Qualifications 

• 8+ years of professional experience in security engineering, threat detection, or client platform engineering.
• Demonstrated expertise in designing, building, and tuning detection systems (rules, anomaly models, correlation logic) across log, network, and endpoint telemetry, with a track record of improving detection coverage and signal fidelity while reducing false-positive burden on responders.
• Proven ability to solve strategically important problems by providing concrete technical input into code and systems across multiple teams.
• Demonstrated experience leading cross-functional security and privacy projects through all stages: inception, requirement gathering, threat modeling, and global operations.
• Expertise in defining standards for security/privacy, testing, monitoring, and alerting systems, while leading teams to execute against them.
• Ability to direct incident management as a high-level escalation point for other engineers, identifying and adopting best practices in incident response across teams.
• Demonstrated skill in making complex engineering and risk tradeoffs (e.g., Security/Privacy vs. Velocity, Buy vs. Build) with an understanding of short and long-term implications.
• Proven track record of technical writing and review, including ERDs, developer documentation, and post-mortems that meet business and compliance goals.
• Education: Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Cybersecurity, or a related technical field.

Preferred Qualifications 

• Master’s degree or PhD in a technical field and 10+ years of experience in a cybersecurity leadership or staff-level role.
• Deep knowledge of Cybersecurity, Compliance, and Privacy, with experience chaining vulnerabilities and quantifying risks.
• Experience collaborating with EMs, TPMs, and PMs on prioritization, headcount planning, and technical evaluation of team members.
• Advanced expertise in leveraging AI/ML for security use cases and building device attestation or trust tooling at a global scale.
• Strategic relationship builder: Proven ability to leverage collaborative relationships with legal, product, and engineering stakeholders to build trust and accomplish work.

For San Francisco, CA-based roles: The base salary range for this role is USD $232,000 per year - USD $258,000 per year.

You will be eligible to participate in Uber's bonus program, and may be offered an equity award & other types of comp. All full-time employees are eligible to participate in a 401(k) plan. You will also be eligible for various benefits.