Security Operations Engineer
Typically requires 3 to 5 years of experience in incident response, security operations, and cloud security.
A security operations engineer identifies known and unknown threats to a company’s computer systems, understands adversary tactics, techniques, and procedures, and helps respond to detected incidents. They support the security operations center in understanding incidents targeting a company, implement and improve threat detection capabilities, and drive security monitoring efforts. Daily responsibilities of a threat response engineer include:
- Thinking like an attacker and a defender to identify and protect against threats.
- Automating detection and monitoring using open source and proprietary tools.
- Responding to security issues under high pressure.
- Coordinating and communicating across teams as part of incident response.
- Designing and performing tabletop exercises, and performing incident response readiness assessments.
$90–$115K
Salary range (US data)
1K
Job openings
9%
Job growth
Krittika Lalwaney
Red Team Security Engineer
Krittika has over 9 years of experience in the information security field. She started out as a Middle East Studies expert and Arabic linguist.


Krittika Lalwaney
Red Team Security Engineer, Capital One
Krittika started out in the security field in a cyber threat intelligence role, then worked as part of a security operations team in incident response, and now specializes in social engineering as part of Capital One’s red team. She participates in operations that simulate real-world threats and protects the company from evolving threats and vulnerabilities.
I get to be a bad guy for the good guys. I get to test out all the possible ways threat actors can intrude a network and educate my company. It's a great way to show impact and educate on ways to get problems fixed fast.
We had a chance to connect with Krittika to ask her a few questions about her cybersecurity journey.
Start the Journey to Become a Security Operations Engineer
+600 POINTS
~1 hr
★★★★★
Top skills requested
The technical and specialized skills most frequently requested by employers for this role.
- Security operations
- Programming languages
- Information Security
- Network security
- Operating systems
- Networking hardware
- Threat analysis
- IT industry knowledge
- Software as a Service (SaaS)
GENERAL BUSINESS SKILLS
The business skills most frequently requested by employers for this role.
Note: Percentages refer to the rate at which this skill appears in job postings
In partnership with the World Economic Forum.

