Lead Security Engineer (Threat Detection)
About Nu
Nu is the leading digital bank in Latin America, serving 140 million customers across Brazil, Mexico, and Colombia. The company has been leading an industry transformation by leveraging data and proprietary technology to develop innovative products and services.
Guided by its mission to fight complexity and empower people, Nu caters to customers’ complete financial journey, promoting financial access and advancement with responsible lending and transparency. The company is powered by an efficient and scalable business model that combines low cost to serve with growing returns.
Nu’s impact has been recognized in multiple awards, including Time 100 Most Influential Companies, Fast Company’s Most Innovative Companies, and Forbes World’s Best Banks.
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About the role
You will lead the team that stands between adversaries and 135 million customers. The Threat Detection team proactively hunts for security threats and builds robust, actionable detections to protect both customers and Nubankers - operating as a true Security Operations Center, backed by strong engineering power and intelligence from our internal Threat Intelligence team.
As Lead, you own the strategic Threat Detection program end to end: intelligence gathering, threat modeling, detection engineering, AI-assisted analysis, Purple Team validation, incident response and post-incident learning. Your goal is to make sure effective detection rules, actionable insights and AI-enabled security capabilities are in place and aligned with industry best practices, so that adversary activity across Nubank's environment is identified, prevented and detected before it reaches our customers.
You'll also build and lead a high-performing team, support Security leadership in building a world-class security organization, and ensure detection processes meet auditing requirements and support clear communication with regulatory bodies.
Learn more about Nubank Infosec:https://blog.nubank.com.br/infosec-nubank-protecao-dados/
You'll be responsible for
Analyzing cyber threat intelligence, emerging attack trends and security telemetry to develop robust detections and threat models, while reducing false positives and improving the efficiency of security operations.
Leveraging AI and machine learning across the detection lifecycle - anomaly detection, behavioral analytics, alert triage, threat intelligence enrichment, investigation prioritization and response automation - and leading their adoption so these capabilities are reliable, measurable and secure.
Defining validation, quality, explainability and security controls for AI-assisted capabilities, accounting for risks such as inaccurate outputs, data leakage, prompt injection, model manipulation and adversarial evasion.
Leading Purple Team activities with Offensive Security, Threat Intelligence, Incident Response and Engineering: translating adversary behaviors into realistic attack simulations, adversary emulation plans and detection validation scenarios mapped to frameworks such as MITRE ATT&CK.
Identifying detection and prevention gaps, validating security controls, measuring detection coverage and driving remediation through actionable improvement plans.
Establishing feedback loops between offensive and defensive teams so lessons from simulations and real incidents continuously improve detection, investigation and response.
Defining success criteria and tracking metrics: detection coverage, validation success rate, false-positive reduction, investigation time, response efficiency and remediation cycle time.
Building and leading the team - mentoring engineers and fostering a culture of ownership, accountability, collaboration and continuous learning.
Partnering closely with Security Engineering, Threat Intelligence, Software Engineering and Incident Response to build scalable solutions for analyzing security event data and a resilient security architecture aligned with Business Unit strategy.
We are looking for a person who has
Solid hands-on experience with Threat Hunting and Incident Response, including handling and resolving complex security incidents.
Experience as a technical leader in the identification, analysis and response to complex security threats, providing mentorship and guidance to team members.
Experience developing and maintaining detection-as-code solutions to automate threat identification and response.
Proven experience in information security operations, with expertise in managing, analyzing and deriving insights from logs and other security-related data.
Proficiency with SIEM and EDR tools, and with security platforms such as WAFs, firewalls (e.g. Palo Alto, Cisco ASA) and IDS/IPS.
Experience using and integrating threat intelligence feeds to improve detection.
Proficiency in SQL for querying and managing security-related databases.
Knowledge of cloud security principles and experience securing cloud environments across providers (e.g. AWS).
Track record of developing processes, measuring results and delivering continuous improvement.
Strong communication skills, a genuine team player and team leader, able to thrive in a team where diversity is key to high performance.
Advanced English.
Location for this opportunity (City, Country)
São Paulo, Brazil
Campinas, Brazil
Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
Belo Horizonte, Brazil
Our Benefits
Chance of earning equity at Nubank
Food/ Meal Card (Vale-Refeição and/or Vale Alimentação)
Public Transportation Commuting Benefit (Vale-Transporte)
NuCare - Psychological, Financial and Legal Assistance Program
Life Insurance
Medical Plan
Dental Plan
NuLanguage - Language Course Program
Nucleo - Our learning platform of courses
Extended Parental Leave
Daycare Allowance
Parental Consultancy
Work-from-home Allowance
Gym Partnerships
30 days of paid vacation
Relocation Assistance Package, if applicable
Work Model for this Role
Hybrid 2-3 times/week: Our hybrid work model brings us to the office at least twice a week, on strategic days designed to maximize team connection and collaboration. For more details, visit https://building.nubank.com/nu-hybrid-work-model/
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Our recruitment process may involve the use of artificial intelligence-enabled tools, such as automated interview transcription and analysis, to support the evaluation process. Artificial intelligence is not used to make final hiring decisions; all decisions are made by human reviewers.