Security Operations Engineer

Alpaca is a US-headquartered self-clearing broker-dealer and brokerage infrastructure provider. They are seeking a Security Operations Engineer to manage day-to-day security operations, including overseeing third-party SOC relationships, operating and tuning the SIEM, and ensuring prompt resolution of security issues.

Responsibilities:

• Own the relationship with our managed SOC, including alert quality, escalation workflows, SLAs, runbooks, and continuous improvement of detection coverage and response effectiveness. Assist with triage, investigations, and respond to security alerts across endpoints, identity, cloud, network, and application logs
• Operate and maintain our SIEM, including log onboarding, parsing, normalization, correlation rules, alert tuning, and lifecycle management to reduce noise and increase signal
• Ensure critical systems generate the right security telemetry, filling gaps across endpoints, identity providers, network devices, SaaS tools, and cloud platforms
• Continuously refine detection logic based on threat intelligence, SOC feedback, incident learnings, and emerging attack techniques
• Assist with security incidents, working with IT, Engineering, and external partners to contain, eradicate, and recover from incidents
• Develop, maintain, and continuously improve incident response playbooks, escalation paths, and communication procedures
• Track and report on key security operations metrics such as alert volumes, false positive rates, mean time to detect (MTTD), mean time to respond (MTTR), and SOC performance
• Act as the security liaison to the IT Helpdesk, ensuring security-related tickets are properly triaged, prioritized, and resolved without slowing down business operations
• Provide guidance and context to IT teams on security alerts, risks, and required actions, helping raise the overall security maturity of frontline support teams

Requirements:

• Excited about Alpaca's mission and what we're building
• 3+ years of experience in Security Operations roles
• Hands-on experience operating and tuning a SIEM (on-prem or cloud-based)
• Hands-on experience maintaining Kubernetes clusters
• Working with Linux
• Scripting or automation experience (Python, Bash) for security operations tasks
• Experience working with a third-party SOC or MSSP
• Strong incident response and alert investigation skills across identity, endpoint, network, and cloud environments
• Understanding of common attacker techniques and detection methodologies
• Experience working closely with IT/helpdesk teams and translating security requirements into operational workflows
• Familiarity with endpoint security, identity monitoring, and log-based detections
• Strong written and verbal communication skills, especially during incidents
• Comfortable working cross-functionally and handling escalations calmly and decisively
• Experience securing financial, trading, or other highly regulated platforms
• Familiarity with compliance frameworks such as SOC 2, ISO 27001, or PCI
• Experience with detection engineering frameworks (MITRE ATT&CK)
• Knowledge of cloud security logging (AWS/GCP/Azure) and SaaS security telemetry
• Experience working with GitOps and CI/CD pipelines
• Experience running tabletop exercises or incident response simulations
• Security certifications (GCIA, GCIH, GCED, CISSP, or similar)
• Ability to balance security rigor with operational efficiency and business needs