Head of Malware Research – Engineering

This is a fully remote position, open to applicants in Spain.

📋 Description

• Introduce, take ownership of, and continuously enhance key metrics for antivirus products.

• Define and prioritize the product roadmap spanning all three teams.

• Drive product initiatives to meet ambitious key metrics.

• Collaborate with Product Management to address VIP customer requirements and perform competitive analysis.

• Integrate additional AI tools and instruments into the malware detection lifecycle.

• Manage the complete malware detection pipeline: from file ingestion to cloud analysis, verdict delivery on servers, and cleanup.

• Influence architectural choices for distributed data processing (Airflow DAGs, asynchronous Python, ClickHouse, MongoDB, Redis, Kafka).

• Oversee migration and modernization efforts (e.g., AI malware analysis, creation of AI rules).

• Design and implement performance enhancements for cloud processing throughput (10M+ new samples daily).

• Manage infrastructure capacity planning: including compute nodes, Ceph storage clusters, and database scaling.

• Lead three teams across various time zones.

• Recruit, mentor, and develop engineers and team leaders for the three teams.

• Coordinate dependencies across teams with the Server Team, Web Protection Team, QA, Infrastructure, and Support.

• Ensure the quality of signature releases through automated testing pipelines.

• Monitor and enhance detection rates, false positive rates, and success metrics for cleanup.

• Address production incidents such as certificate expirations, infrastructure failures, and processing bottlenecks.

• Manage technical integrations with vendors and partners.

• Comprehend the entire pipeline from file ingestion on client servers to processing in the cloud, verdict delivery, and server-side scanning/cleanup.

• Maintain progress on active initiatives, such as the Rust migration.

• Build relationships with cross-functional stakeholders (Server Team, Web Protection Team, Product, Support, Infrastructure).

• Identify and resolve the top three detection quality or infrastructure bottlenecks.

• Define and refine the department's key metrics towards excellence.

⛳️ Requirements

• Previous experience leading security products/labs along with research.

• Over 8 years of software engineering experience, including 3+ years in a management role overseeing multiple teams.

• In-depth expertise in malware analysis and antivirus technologies: static/dynamic analysis, signature-based detection, heuristic engines, and file classification.

• Strong background in distributed systems and data engineering: experience with workflow orchestration (Airflow, Luigi, or similar), message queues (Kafka, RabbitMQ), and large-scale data processing.

• Experience managing infrastructure at scale, including compute clusters, storage systems (Ceph, S3), and databases (ClickHouse, MongoDB, PostgreSQL, Redis).

• Strong grasp of CI/CD pipelines: Jenkins, GitLab CI, and containerized deployments (Docker).

• Experience with monitoring and observability tools: Grafana, Sentry, and log aggregation.

• Background in web hosting security domains (cPanel, Plesk, shared hosting environments).

• Experience applying machine learning to malware detection (transformers, LLMs for code analysis).

• Familiarity with Google Cloud Platform (Secret Manager, Cloud Storage).

• Knowledge of PHP internals and PHP emulation for dynamic analysis.

• Proven track record of building and scaling cloud antivirus/threat intelligence platforms.

• Experience managing geographically distributed teams.

🏝️ Benefits

• Emphasis on professional development.

• Engaging and challenging projects.

• Fully remote work with flexible hours that allow you to set your schedule and work from anywhere globally.

• Paid 24 days of vacation annually, 10 national holidays, and unlimited sick leave.

• Compensation for private medical insurance.

• Reimbursement for co-working and gym/sports expenses.

• Budget allocated for education.

• Opportunity to earn a reward for the most innovative idea that the company can patent.