Staff Security Engineer

Join us at Zendesk, a company focused on powering exceptional service globally by building products rooted in AI, automation, and intelligent customer experiences. The role is part of the Threat Prevention Engineering team within Zendesk’s Cyber Defense Fusion Center, based in Krakow, Poland.

• 8+ years in security or software engineering with experience operating at Staff or Senior scope
• Proficient in production-grade Go and/or Python with experience building reliable security tooling
• Experienced in designing and running containerized workloads on Kubernetes/EKS and building on AWS cloud-native services
• Strong knowledge of security fundamentals including threat modeling, controls architecture, identity and access patterns, and layered defense
• Experience building and maintaining security data pipelines and log infrastructure at scale
• Preference for automation and code over manual processes, with skills in APIs, Infrastructure as Code, and programmatic integrations
• Experience shipping AI and agentic workflows in production environments with understanding of governance and validation
• Strong communication and mentoring skills with ability to lead technically without formal title

Nice to have:

• Familiarity with MCP (Model Context Protocol) or building agentic AI integrations
• Experience with enterprise security platforms including EDR, SIEM, SOAR, cloud security posture management, threat intelligence, and data analytics
• Background in detection engineering and SOC collaboration
• Experience designing and operating security data lakes, log rehydration strategies, and large-scale telemetry infrastructure
• Relevant certifications such as CISSP, OSCP, AWS Security Specialty or experience at an enterprise-scale SaaS company

• Own the AI strategic roadmap, including evaluating frameworks, running proof-of-concepts, and shipping AI-powered capabilities into production
• Architect and operate cloud-native security data infrastructure including detection pipelines, log management, telemetry collection, and data rehydration at enterprise scale
• Lead complex, multi-phase security engineering initiatives including design, stakeholder alignment, phased migrations, and production deployment without disruption
• Build automation-first security workflows, including AI-assisted triage and agentic automations to reduce manual effort
• Collaborate with engineering, platform, cloud, and integrated teams to align controls, tooling, and workflows
• Set technical direction and mentor peers in modern security engineering practices and AI tooling adoption
• Define and track metrics reflecting security outcomes to drive continuous improvement

• This role requires working in Krakow, Poland with a hybrid schedule including office presence two days per week
• Zendesk is an equal opportunity employer committed to diversity, equity, and inclusion
• Artificial intelligence or automated decision systems may be used to screen or evaluate applications in accordance with company guidelines and applicable law
• Reasonable accommodations are available for applicants with disabilities upon request