Black Lotus Labs Threat Researcher - APT Research

Lumen is the trusted network for the AI-powered world, connecting people, data, and applications through our expansive fiber network and connected ecosystem. We enable secure, high-performance connectivity across cloud, edge, and AI workloads for enterprises, governments, and communities.

At Lumen, you’ll work on infrastructure customers rely on today and build for what’s next, where performance, security, and resilience matter.

This is a high accountability environment where bold ideas drive real innovation for our customers, partners, and industry. The work is challenging, expectations are clear, and trust is built into how we operate. If you’re ready to take ownership, deliver meaningful impact, and help shape the future of AI-ready connectivity, join us today.

The Role

Black Lotus Labs is seeking a remote Threat Intelligence Researcher on the Research & Analysis team focused on tracking advanced threats. This team leverages Lumen’s global visibility across one of the world’s largest and most interconnected IP backbones, a petabyte-scale compute, AI-assisted workflows, proprietary telemetry, and third-party data sources to conduct cutting-edge threat research, hunt and track advanced persistent threat actors (APTs), identify emerging criminal infrastructure, and convert large-scale observations into actionable intelligence for customers.

This role sits at the intersection of threat intelligence, data science, and security automation. The successful candidate will help shape the next generation of intelligence operations by building AI-assisted workflows that augment analyst tradecraft, accelerate threat discovery and detection development, automate enrichment and intelligence production, and transform large-scale telemetry into actionable security insights while maintaining analytical rigor, explainability, and operational guardrails.

Location

This is a remote position with customer travel in the DC area approximately 1 time per month.

The Main Responsibilities

• Leverage global datasets (e.g., netflow, malware and passive DNS,) to track malicious cyber actors, their infrastructure, and campaigns. Build repeatable AI-assisted and automation-driven methods to accelerate detection, prioritization, and intelligence production.
• Use technical knowledge of adversary capabilities, infrastructure, malware, and network behavior to define, develop, and implement techniques for tracking sophisticated adversaries and delivering actionable threat intelligence to Lumen customers.
• Lead and enhance threat hunting operations by engaging with research, engineering, data science, and customer-facing teams; building strong partnerships; exploring new data sources; and collaborate with team members in AI-assisted workflow generation, automation design, and complex analytic problem solving.
• Identify malicious activity in large-scale network, endpoint, DNS, routing, and enrichment data, and scale detection through Python-based automation and data pipelines.
• Establish AI powered analytical workflows to automate and scale detections of adversary activity and tradecraft.
• Provide actionable analysis and strategic insights into emerging threats, vulnerabilities, adversary infrastructure, and automation-derived findings, translating complex technical information into clear intelligence for executive leadership, customers, and external stakeholders.

What We Look For in a Candidate

• Proven experience in threat analysis and in-depth technical security research, with a track record of identifying and tracking nation-state malicious infrastructure activity with an emphasis on network traffic analysis.
• Fluency in advanced threat hunting methodologies, attacker tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs), and the ability to derive actionable threat hunts, detections, and intelligence requirements from complex data sets.
• Experience with large-scale data analysis platforms with tools such as PySpark.
• Experience with telemetry collection and analysis, including OSINT, proprietary endpoint and network data, DNS and routing data, TTP-based threat hunting, and/or threat hunt tooling that improves cross-organization visibility and supports public-private or multi-company collaboration.
• Proven communication and presentation skills, including the ability to clearly and concisely convey complex technical findings, automation-derived insights, and intelligence judgments to technical, executive, customer, and partner audiences.

Well-experienced candidates may also have the following skills:

• Proficiency in malware reverse engineering and incident response.
• Software development experience with Docker, distributed data technologies such as Hadoop or Spark, cloud AI services, vector databases, workflow orchestration, and machine learning frameworks such as TensorFlow or PyTorch.
• Experience with agentic AI or workflow frameworks such as MCP-based architectures.
• Active TS/SCI

Compensation

This information reflects the anticipated base salary range for this position based on current national data. Minimums and maximums may vary based on location. Individual pay is based on skills, experience and other relevant factors.

Location Based Pay Ranges

$145,456 - $193,940 in these states: MD, VA, D.C.

Lumen offers a comprehensive package featuring a broad range of Health, Life, Voluntary Lifestyle benefits and other perks that enhance your physical, mental, emotional and financial wellbeing. We're able to answer any additional questions you may have about our bonus structure (short-term incentives, long-term incentives and/or sales compensation) as you move through the selection process.

Bonus Structure

What to Expect Next

Requisition #: 342886

Life at Lumen

Life at Lumen is human and connected, even in a fast moving, AI-focused organization. We set clear expectations and trust people to meet them. With real support and shared accountability, teams collaborate better, move faster, and deliver meaningful outcomes.

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Disclaimer

The job responsibilities described above indicate the general nature and level of work performed by employees within this classification. It is not intended to include a comprehensive inventory of all duties and responsibilities for this job. Job duties and responsibilities are subject to change based on evolving business needs and conditions.

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