Cybersecurity Detection Engineer II

Cox Automotive is seeking a Cybersecurity Engineer II to join our Detection Engineering team, supporting next-generation Cyber Defense across our diverse portfolio of automotive solutions including Dealertrack, Manheim, Autotrader, Kelley Blue Book, Central Dispatch, and vAuto.
Reporting to the Director of Cyber Detection Engineering, you'll build, tune, and maintain enterprise- and customer-focused detection capabilities, including AI-assisted detection workflows and automation, with guidance and support from senior engineers on the team. You'll work closely with Incident Response, Threat Intelligence, and Vulnerability Management to strengthen detection coverage. The ideal candidate has solid hands-on experience with SIEM log analysis gained in detection engineering or a SOC, a working knowledge of Incident Response and Threat Intelligence, and uses AI tools daily to work faster and smarter. Strong verbal and written communication skills and a drive to keep learning are essential.
What You'll Do
Cybersecurity Detection Engineering:

• Build, test, and maintain detections that protect Cox Automotive's internal systems as well as its domestic and international businesses.

• Contribute to the Detection Engineering roadmap and objectives by delivering assigned work and recommending improvements to senior engineers.

• Use AI tools and large language models daily to accelerate detection development, query writing, log analysis, investigation, and documentation, and validate AI output for accuracy before use.

• Build and maintain AI-assisted detection and triage workflows (such as prompts, agent steps, and automated enrichment) as part of detection solutions, following established patterns and guidance from senior engineers.

• Develop and tune detection rules, automated remediation playbooks, and alerts using SIEM, EDR, and SOAR platforms, tailored to Cox Automotive's enterprise and customer threat landscape.

• Use the MITRE ATT&CK and ATLAS frameworks to map detections, assess coverage, and help identify gaps.

• Monitor detection performance and tune detections to reduce false positives and improve effectiveness.

• Collaborate with the Threat Detection and Response team to continuously improve the identification and response to threats.

• Perform attack simulation testing to validate the efficacy of detection use cases, using established tools and procedures.

• Support purple teaming exercises in collaboration with the Vulnerability Management team.

• Support SIEM/Data Lake log ingestion by onboarding log sources, validating parsing and data quality, and troubleshooting ingestion issues, in collaboration with Cyber Defense Engineering counterparts.

• Evaluate, validate, tune, and recommend retirement of detections as needed.

• Collect and report detection metrics, such as alert volume, false positive rates, and coverage, on a routine basis.

• Build and maintain operational guidelines, diagrams, and documentation for security detection and response.

• Participate in an off-hours support rotation for security detection and response activities.

Incident Response:

• Collaborate with the Incident Response team to support rapid detection and containment of cyber threats.

• Build threat detection logic during incident response, with guidance, to accelerate threat identification and containment.

• Contribute to improving detection and response processes based on lessons learned from incidents.

Threat Intelligence Integration:

• Apply threat intelligence from the Threat Intelligence team to build and enhance detections.

• Research new and emerging threats and share findings with the team to inform detection priorities.

Stakeholder Collaboration:

• Partner with other Cybersecurity, Engineering, and Product teams to support successful deployment of detection and response solutions.

• Support Product teams in implementing customer-focused detection and response solutions, with guidance from senior engineers.

• Communicate detection capabilities and findings clearly to technical and non-technical stakeholders and escalate issues to senior engineers or leadership as needed.

Governance and Compliance:

• Follow detection and response processes that adhere to regulatory requirements and industry standards (e.g., GDPR, PCI-DSS, NIST).

• Maintain documentation of detection use cases, processes, and configurations.

Who You Are
Minimum Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in a related discipline and 2 years' experience in a related field. The right candidate could also have a different combination, such as a master's degree and up to 2 years' experience; or 14 years' experience in a related field

• 1+ year of experience in Detection Engineering or in a Security Operations Center (SOC) role. Direct Detection Engineering experience is not required for candidates with SOC experience.

• Working knowledge of detection concepts, including searching and writing logic with a SIEM query language (such as SPL, KQL, or similar).

• Hands-on experience with a SIEM, including searching and analyzing log data.

• Working knowledge of information security, network security, security monitoring, and Incident Response fundamentals.

• Demonstrated daily use of AI tools and prompt engineering to support security or technical work.

• Familiarity with industry standard security technologies and services such as threat intelligence, firewalls, IPS, endpoint security, DLP, SIEM/SOAR, and Data Lakes.

• Familiarity with security concepts in at least one major cloud platform (AWS, Azure, or GCP).

• Understanding of the attack kill chain and the MITRE ATT&CK framework.

• Ability to work independently on defined tasks and to seek guidance when needed.

Preferred Qualifications

• Security+, GSEC, GCIA, GCIH, SC-200, AWS Security Specialty, or similar certification(s).

• Experience with AI/ML frameworks or building AI-assisted workflows for security applications.

• Experience with SOAR automation or scripting (such as Python).

• Multi-cloud security experience (AWS, Azure, GCP).

• Dev Ops / Engineering / Network / System Administration experience.

• Exposure to customer-focused detection and response systems.

• Familiarity with Open Cybersecurity Schema Framework (OCSF).

USD 89,400.00 - 134,000.00 per year
Compensation:
Compensation includes a base salary in the range of $89,400.00 - $134,000.00. The base salary may vary within the anticipated base pay range based on factors such as the ultimate location of the position and the selected candidate's knowledge, skills, and abilities. Position may be eligible for additional compensation that may include an incentive program.
Benefits:
The Company offers eligible employees the flexibility to take as much vacation with pay as they deem consistent with their duties, the company's needs, and its obligations; seven paid holidays throughout the calendar year; and up to 160 hours of paid wellness annually for their own wellness or that of family members. Employees are also eligible for additional paid time off in the form of bereavement leave, time off to vote, jury duty leave, volunteer time off, military leave, and parental leave.
Applicants must currently be authorized to work in the United States for any employer without current or future sponsorship.
EOE, including disability/vets