Senior Manager, Detection & Response (Security Engineering)

We’re not just building better tech. We’re rewriting how data moves and what the world can do with it. With Confluent, data doesn’t sit still. Our platform puts information in motion, streaming in near real-time so companies can react faster, build smarter, and deliver experiences as dynamic as the world around them. It takes a certain kind of person to join this team. Those who ask hard questions, give honest feedback, and show up for each other. No egos, no solo acts. Just smart, curious humans pushing toward something bigger, together. One Confluent. One Team. One Data Streaming Platform. About the Role: We are seeking an experienced engineering leader to head our Detection & Response organization within Infrastructure Security. In this role, you will define the strategic vision, technical roadmap, and operational execution for how Confluent detects, investigates, and responds to security threats across our multi-cloud environments (AWS, GCP, Azure). You will lead and grow a distributed team of high-performing engineers across North America and India. Our team applies modern engineering principles to security—leveraging scalable Kubernetes pipelines, custom ETL jobs, AI-assisted triage workflows, and Confluent’s own data-streaming platform (Kafka) as our central transport. If you are passionate about building real-time, high-throughput security automation and fostering an engineering-first incident response culture, this role is for you. What You Will Do: Own the strategic vision and roadmap execution for Confluent's Detection & Response program across our multi-cloud infrastructure. Build, scale, and mentor a distributed, global team across North America and India. Drive the evolution of detection engineering and incident response capabilities by utilizing modern software practices with an emphasis on large scale automation. Oversee security incident response operations, serving as an escalation point/Incident Commander during high-severity security events and driving post-incident reviews. Establish or improve operational metrics to continuously evaluate and improve program maturity. Partner closely with Engineering, and stakeholders across Legal and Compliance teams, to integrate detection telemetry and proactive response across the company. Champion an engineering-centric security culture focused on automation, noise reduction, and continuous improvement to minimize operational toil for responders. What You Will Bring: 12+ years of experience in software development, security engineering, or security operations, with 5+ years in direct engineering or security management. Proven track record of building, coaching, and scaling engineering teams across multiple time zones. Deep technical domain expertise across detection engineering, incident response, and threat intelligence. Experience building or operating scalable data/event pipelines, modern telemetry stacks, or stream-processing architectures. Demonstrated ability to lead complex, high-severity security incidents with composure, clarity, and cross-functional leadership. Excellent communication and stakeholder management skills, with a proven ability to translate complex security risks into clear strategic priorities for engineering leadership. Bachelor’s or Master's degree in Computer Science, Cybersecurity, Engineering, or equivalent experience. Ready to build what's next? Let’s get in motion. Come As You Are Belonging isn’t a perk here. It’s the baseline. We work across time zones and backgrounds, knowing the best ideas come from different perspectives. And we make space for everyone to lead, grow, and challenge what’s possible. We’re proud to be an equal opportunity workplace. Employment decisions are based on job-related criteria, without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability, veteran status, or any other classification protected by law. Privacy Statement Confluent is an IBM subsidiary which has been acquired by IBM and will be integrated into the IBM organization. By proceeding with this application, you understand that Confluent will share your personal information with other IBM affiliates involved in your recruitment process, wherever these are located. More Information on how IBM protects your personal information, including the safeguards in case of cross-border data transfer, are available here .