Praetorian

Offensive Security Engineer

Praetorian • $80K — $95K *
Information Technology
Less than 5 years of experience
Job Overview by Ladders

Qualifications

  • 5-7 years in offensive security, software, or hardware engineering
  • Demonstrated achievements in competition settings like CTFS or CCDC
  • Proven experience in software development and open source contributions
  • Prior involvement in vulnerability research and CVE assignments
  • Certifications such as OSCP, OSCE, OSEE, or OSWE
  • Bachelor's degree in CS, engineering, physics, or math from a top 10 university

Responsibilities

  • Identify subtle vulnerabilities in complex systems
  • Enhance team's skills and tools through development initiatives
  • Contribute to thought leadership via blogs, open source, and conferences
  • Assist in developing the Praetorian Guard offensive security platform
  • Create detailed reports and presentations to convey identified risks

Benefits

  • Collaborate with elite professionals in the security field
  • Influence decision-making and strategies at a high-impact company
  • Participate in a mission-critical industry with significant global implications
  • Engage in a high-performance culture prioritizing ownership and transparency
  • Be part of a team that directly contributes to protecting vital organizations
Full Job Description
Who We Are Looking For

We are looking for an Offensive Security Engineer who operates with clear ownership. You're not just filling a seat. You're setting the standard. You believe great execution brings strategy to life.

How You Operate

You bring mission-driven grit to every challenge, running toward hard problems rather than away from it. You prioritize customer outcomes over internal processes and choose truth and clarity over performative politeness. We look for builders with a bias for action-people who own the fix when things break, share credit with the team, and possess the intellectual humility to care more about getting to the right answer than being right.

How are you using AI today in your current role? What specific tools are you using? If applicable, show us your last AI experiment.

What You Will Own
  • Own the Outcome: Execute challenging security projects for our PS and MSP customers, ensuring technical precision and successfully resolving complex client needs.
  • Take Accountability: Be accountable for the success of unique engagements by developing custom methodologies, payloads, exploits, and tools when off-the-shelf solutions aren't enough.
  • Raise the Bar: Continuously improve the bridge between services and product by identifying vulnerability trends in the field and translating them into tangible improvements.
  • Drive Impact: Proactively develop new Guard capabilities based on the specific security vulnerabilities identified during PS security projects.
  • Scale Expertise: Aggressively learn as much as possible about the industry and offensive security landscape to ensure the team remains on the bleeding edge of tradecraft.

What You Bring
  • The Foundation: A Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, Mathematics, or Physics, backed by 0-2 years of experience or relevant internships in cybersecurity, startups, or high-tech environments.
  • Technical Fluency: You have experience writing software or scripts using common offensive security languages, specifically Go (Golang), Python, PowerShell, or Bash.
  • Domain Expertise: You have early experience or a demonstrated passion for Product Security (App/Mobile/LLM), Cloud Security (AWS/Azure/GCP), Web/Network Penetration Testing, Red Teaming, or IoT/Embedded Security.
  • Offensive Security Mindset: You don't just work 9-to-5; you compete. You have notable achievements in CTFs (CCDC, CPTC) or on testing platforms like Hack The Box, TryHackMe, or PortSwigger.
  • The "Plus One" Edge: You go beyond the basics with verifiable contributions to vulnerability research (CVEs), exploit development, or open-source offsec projects. Familiarity with AI prompt engineering for tool/payload generation is a strong plus.
  • Certifications: You hold or are actively pursuing industry-recognized certifications such as OSCP, OSEP, PNPT, BSCP, OSWE, or relevant cloud certifications.

If This Position Is Wildly Successful, In One Year You Will Have:
  • Delivered high-impact findings across multiple engagement types - red team operations, application security assessments, cloud security reviews - that materially improved clients' security posture and drove repeat engagements
  • Developed custom methodologies, payloads, exploits, and tools that solved problems off-the-shelf solutions couldn't, advancing the team's offensive capabilities and contributing to Praetorian's reputation for technical excellence
  • Produced clear, actionable reports that resonated with both technical practitioners and executive stakeholders - driving remediation, building client trust, and reinforcing Praetorian's credibility in the field
  • Contributed meaningfully to Guard's capabilities by identifying recurring vulnerability trends in the field and translating them into tangible platform improvements that scale your impact beyond individual engagements
  • Integrated AI tooling into your offensive workflows - using it to automate reconnaissance, accelerate payload development, and move faster through complex environments without sacrificing depth or precision
  • Demonstrated versatility across the threat landscape - from traditional infrastructure and web applications to cloud-native environments and AI/ML systems - reflecting the evolving nature of modern attack surfaces
  • Contributed research, blog posts, or conference presentations that elevated Praetorian's thought leadership in the offensive security community
  • Mentored junior engineers and contributed to a culture of continuous learning, raising the technical floor across the team through your example and your investment in the people around you

About Praetorian

Praetorian is a cybersecurity company that provides a range of services to help organizations protect their digital assets. The company's services include vulnerability assessments, penetration testing, and incident response. Praetorian's clients include some of the largest companies in the world, as well as government agencies and non-profit organizations. The company was founded in 2010 and is headquartered in Dallas, Texas. Praetorian has been recognized as one of the fastest-growing companies in the United States by Inc. Magazine.
Learn more about Praetorian
Size
500 employees
Industry
Net Income
$500,000
Founded
2010
5 Year Trend
+30%
Revenue
$20 million
NASDAQ

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