Senior Threat Researcher – AI

Proofpoint

full-time

Posted on: 2/5/2026

Location Type: Remote

✨ AI Apply

About the role

Hunt and analyze attack chains including phishing, BEC, account takeover, malware, and other threats, with a focus on campaigns that exploit or target AI systems.
Track and profile threat actors, campaigns, and infrastructure over time, building high-fidelity models of adversary activity.
Identify emerging trends, tactics, techniques, and tooling used by adversaries, and articulate their potential impact on customers and verticals.
Provide actionable findings to detection, product, and engineering teams to improve customer protection and inform AI-driven defense strategies.
Collaborate with engineering teams developing Proofpoint’s agentic AI solutions, ensuring security considerations are integrated and AI capabilities are leveraged effectively in research workflows.
Explore and apply modern AI techniques to augment threat research, including clustering, attribution, campaign discovery, and prioritization.
Occasionally deliver technical briefings to customers, user groups, and internal or external stakeholders.
Collaborate on research projects with the wider threat research team and cross-functional AI security initiatives.
Work effectively as part of a global, remote-first team using chat, video, and asynchronous collaboration tools.

Proven experience in cybersecurity, threat intelligence, incident response, or related fields.
Strong foundation in threat research, cybercrime, fraud, or adversary-focused security work, with hands-on experience analyzing real-world attacks.
Well-rounded understanding of the modern threat landscape, including phishing, BEC, account takeover, malware, and other email-borne threats.
Practical working knowledge of modern AI technologies, including LLM frameworks, agentic AI systems, and AI-assisted tools.
Experience building or experimenting with simple agentic AI applications leveraging LLM frameworks, MCP servers; AI engineering experience.
Ability to translate complex technical findings into actionable insights and risk narratives for customers, internal teams, and executives.
Strong written and verbal communication skills.
Collaborative mindset, capable of working closely with detection, product, and engineering teams.
Participation in the information security community, such as published papers, blogs, conference presentations, or open-source contributions.
Proficiency or native-level fluency in German is a strong plus.

Benefits

Applicant Tracking System Keywords

Tip: use these terms in your resume and cover letter to boost ATS matches.

Hard Skills & Tools

cybersecuritythreat intelligenceincident responsethreat researchcybercrimefraud analysisAI technologiesLLM frameworksagentic AI systemsAI engineering

Soft Skills

communication skillscollaborative mindsetability to translate technical findingsstrong written skillsstrong verbal skills