Staff Security Engineer, Purple Team

The Okta Security team’s mission is to strengthen Okta’s position as the leading Identity-as-a-Service solution through identifying and resolving risks to our employees, products, and most importantly, our customers. With the ever-increasing pace of cloud application adoption, companies are struggling to find ways to accurately assess risk and act at the speed of their business.

In addition to driving security in our Corporate environment and the Okta service, the Security team is deeply entrenched in the Okta business. As such, we contribute to product roadmaps, branding, research and other strategic aspects of our operations. We work across multiple functions, business partners and the research community. We are an engineering-focused team that seeks to stay on the cutting edge of security technology and the threat landscape.

The Adversarial Engineering and Operations team (Purple Team) is integral to Cyber Defense’s intelligence-led strategy to safeguard Okta’s infrastructure, products and customers. We specialize in planning and executing adversarial operations alongside Defensive Cyber Operations, simulating sophisticated threat actors and scenarios to provide critical insights into Cyber Defense’s ability to detect and respond to threats.

We’re seeking an experienced operator to join our global team. In this role, you’ll be responsible for planning, executing, and delivering adversarial operations. You’ll work directly with Defensive Cyber Operations to simulate realistic threat scenarios, analyze security gaps, and uncover areas where we can strengthen our detection and response capabilities.

This is not a penetration testing or traditional red team role. While you may identify vulnerabilities or weaknesses in our infrastructure, the primary purpose of this role is to provide actionable insights and enhance our overall ability to detect and respond to sophisticated threats.

Core Responsibilities: 

• Design and execute Adversary Simulations against Okta’s Infrastructure.
• Translate adversarial simulations into actionable recommendations to improve detection and response strategies.
• Collaborate with Okta’s internal teams including Defensive Cyber Operations and Engineering to share results, highlight security gaps, and drive improvements.

• Document adversarial simulations, results and present actionable insights to stakeholders at all levels.

You’re a team player with excellent communication skills and a deep curiosity for understanding complex systems. You know that to defend a system effectively, you must first understand how it works. You enjoy testing assumptions, uncovering hidden risks, and making your own life harder in the process.

You come from a strong offensive security background, with experience in red or purple team roles and are looking for an opportunity to work more closely with defensive teams, using your skills to help build stronger, proactive defenses. You’re well-versed in attacker techniques, and can articulate how they work and how they can be detected and investigated. You don’t just identify problems — you’re motivated to partner with others across teams to drive solutions.

You have experience working with remote teams and can remain self-motivated and focused, contributing effectively outside of a traditional office environment.

Skills and Experience

• Proven experience developing and executing adversary simulations in SaaS applications and cloud environments, including containerized infrastructure.
• Background in adversary simulation, red/purple teaming, objective based testing  or security research.
• Strong understanding of attack techniques, and threat actor methodologies.
• Analytical mindset, with excellent problem-solving skills to uncover potential risks and improve detection and response.
• Outstanding communication and collaboration skills, with the ability to work effectively across teams and geographies.
• Relevant certifications are a plus (OSEP, GXPN, GDAT, etc)

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