Senior Open Source Security Engineer
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About the Role
Role Summary The Senior Open Source Security Engineer is responsible for designing, deploying, hardening, and operating the company's open-source security tooling stack across detection, application security, identity, secrets, vulnerability management, and infrastructure hardening domains.
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1. Role Summary
The Senior Open Source Security Engineer is responsible for designing, deploying, hardening, and operating the company's open-source security tooling stack across detection, application security, identity, secrets, vulnerability management, and infrastructure hardening domains.
The role exists because open-source security tools — when properly engineered, integrated, and maintained — deliver enterprise-grade capability at a fraction of commercial licensing cost, and provide the flexibility, transparency, and customizability that commercial appliances cannot match
.This is a hands-on engineering role with end-to-end ownership: from selecting and standing up tools, through integration into the wider security and DevOps ecosystem, to long-term operations, upgrades, contribution back to upstream projects, and mentoring of junior staff.
The engineer acts as the company's internal centre of expertise for open-source security technology and represents the company in the broader open-source security community
.
2. In-Scope Open-Source Security Tooli
ngThe role covers a generalist portfolio of open-source security tools spanning the following domains.
The specific tools below are illustrative — the engineer is expected to evaluate, recommend, and adopt new open-source tools as the threat and tooling landscape evolve
s.
2.1 Detection, Monitoring & S
- IEMSIEM / log management: Wazuh, OpenSearch Security, Elastic Security (ELK), Gray
- logNetwork detection: Suricata, Zeek (formerly Bro), Arkime (formerly Moloch), Security On
- ionHost detection & EDR-like: Wazuh agent, Osquery, Falco (runtime container securi
- ty)Threat intelligence: MISP, OpenCTI, TheHive + Cor
tex2.2 Application & SDLC Secur
- itySAST: Semgrep, SonarQube Community, Bandit, Brakeman, go
- secDAST: OWASP ZAP, Nuclei, Ni
- ktoSCA / dependency scanning: OWASP Dependency-Check, Dependency-Track, Trivy, Grype, S
- yftContainer & IaC scanning: Trivy, Checkov, tfsec, Kubescape, kube-be
- nchVulnerability aggregation & triage: DefectDojo, Faraday Commun
- itySecret scanning: TruffleHog, Gitleaks, detect-secr
ets2.3 Identity, Access & Secr
- etsIdentity & SSO: Keycloak, Authentik, Free
- IPASecrets management: HashiCorp Vault OSS, Open
- BaoCertificate authority / PKI: step-ca (Smallstep), EJBCA Community, cert-mana
- gerMFA & WebAuthn: privacyIDEA, Keycloak MFA fl
ows2.4 Vulnerability & Infrastructure Secur
- ityVulnerability scanning: OpenVAS / Greenbone Community Edition, Nuc
- leiConfiguration & compliance: OpenSCAP, Lynis, CIS-CAT Lite, Ansible hardening roles (dev-sec.
- io)Host telemetry: Osquery, Fleet, Wazuh ag
- entRuntime / container security: Falco, Tetragon, Tra
- ceeNetwork firewalls & segmentation: OPNsense, pfSense, nftables-based harden
- ing2.5 Supporting Tool
- ingAutomation: Ansible, Terraform, Python, B
- ashContainers & orchestration: Docker, Kubernetes, Helm, Arg
- oCDObservability: Prometheus, Grafana, Loki, OpenTeleme
- tryCI/CD: GitLab CI, GitHub Actions, Jenk
- ins
ties3.1 Deployment & Enginee
- ringDesign, deploy, and harden open-source security tools across detection, application security, identity, secrets, and vulnerability management doma
- ins.Architect for high availability, scalability, backup/restore, and disaster recovery — open-source tooling supporting production workloads must meet the same operational bar as commercial equivale
- nts.Build infrastructure-as-code (Ansible, Terraform, Helm) deployments for repeatability and auditability across dev, test, stage, and production environme
- nts.Containerize tooling where appropriate; deploy and manage on Kubernetes with proper resource limits, network policies, and security conte
xts.3.2 Integration & Automa
- tionIntegrate open-source security tools with the wider security ecosystem: SIEM, ticketing (Jira / YouTrack), GitLab CI/CD, IAM, and notification chann
- els.Build automation around tools: scheduled scans, automated triage, alert enrichment, ticket creation, evidence capt
- ure.Develop custom detection rules, SAST policies, scan profiles, and dashboards tailored to the company's environm
- ent.Contribute custom integrations, rules, and improvements back to upstream open-source projects where appropri
ate.3.3 Operations & Sup
- portProvide day-to-day operational support: monitoring tool health, capacity, upgrades, certificate lifecycle, agent fleet hea
- lth.Manage upgrades and version migration with full regression testing — open-source tools change rapidly and proactive lifecycle management is essent
- ial.Triage and resolve tool-related incidents; participate in security incident response as the open-source platform exp
- ert.Maintain documentation, runbooks, and standard operating procedures for every tool under owners
- hip.Participate in the security on-call rotation when production-critical tools are within sc
ope.3.4 Evaluation & Stra
- tegyContinuously monitor the open-source security tooling landscape; evaluate new tools and recommend adoption, retention, or retirem
- ent.Produce comparative analyses of open-source vs. commercial alternatives to inform tooling investment decisi
- ons.Conduct proofs-of-concept (PoCs) for promising new tools; deliver written evaluations with technical, operational, and security risk assessme
- nts.Maintain a curated roadmap of in-scope tooling aligned with NIST CSF 2.0, ISO 27001, and UAE IA control cover
age.3.5 Security & Risk Manage
- mentTreat open-source tools as part of the company's software supply chain: verify signatures, scan container images, monitor for upstream CVEs, and patch promp
- tly.Apply least-privilege configurations; segregate tooling environments from production data planes where applica
- ble.Document residual risks associated with open-source adoption (community health, support, EOL) and feed them into the enterprise Risk Regis
ter.3.6 Collaboration, Mentoring & Commu
- nityMentor junior engineers and interns; build internal expertise in open-source security technol
- ogy.Conduct internal knowledge-sharing sessions and tool-specific training for SOC, DevOps, and engineering audien
- ces.Participate in the open-source security community: bug reports, feature requests, pull requests, conference participat
- ion.Partner with the wider Cybersecurity, DevOps, and Engineering teams to embed security tooling into the development and operations lifecy
- cle.
- 4.
- GoalsDeliver enterprise-grade security capability via open-source tooling at materially lower TCO than commercial equivalents, with no compromise on operational maturity or audit readi
- ness.Maintain a continuously current, well-integrated, and well-documented open-source security tooling es
- tate.Build the company's reputation as a sophisticated consumer and contributor in the open-source security commu
- nity.Grow internal team capability in open-source security technologies through mentoring, documentation, and trai
- ning.
5. Required Skills & Expe
- rienceEss
- ential5–8 years of hands-on cybersecurity engineering experience, with a substantial portion focused on open-source security to
- oling.Deep practical experience deploying and operating multiple tools from the categories listed in Section 2 (SIEM/detection, AppSec, identity/secrets, vulnerability/i
- nfra).Strong Linux systems administration (Ubuntu, RHEL, Debian) and command-line profic
- iency.Strong scripting and automation: Python, Bash; one of Go or Ruby is a
- plus.Infrastructure-as-code experience: Ansible (required), Terraform,
- Helm.Container and Kubernetes operational experience, including network policies and security con
- texts.Solid understanding of network fundamentals, TLS/PKI, authentication protocols (OAuth2, OIDC, SAML, Kerb
- eros).Familiarity with NIST CSF 2.0, ISO/IEC 27001, OWASP, MITRE ATT&CK; working knowledge of UAE IA Regulation is highly desi
- rable.Excellent written and verbal communication in English — technical documentation, internal training, and stakeholder up
- dates.Des
- irableActive GitHub presence with contributions to open-source security pro
- jects.
Experience
- evaluating and migrating between commercial and open-source security to
- oling.AI/ML security awareness; familiarity with OWASP LLM Top 10 and NIST A
- I RMF.Industry certifications: OSCP, CISSP, GCIH, GCIA, GCFA, CKS, RHCE, or equiv
- alent.
Experience
with private-cloud or sovereign-cloud environ
ments.
6. Performance Ind
- icators
- Tooling availability and operational SLA adherence (target: 99% for production
- tools).Patch and version currency: % tools on supported versions, mean time to upgrade after
- release.Integration coverage: % in-scope tools fully integrated with SIEM, ticketi
- ng, IAM.Detection / scan / coverage metrics tied to in-scop
- e tools.Quality and timeliness of evaluations, PoCs, and roadmap deliv
- erables.Documentation and runbook coverage of in-scop
- e tools.Mentoring outcomes and team capability deve
- lopment.Upstream contributions to open-source p
- rojects.
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