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AWS Security Operations/Incident Response Engineer, US Amazon Dedicated Cloud Security

Amazon

Herndon, VAJob$136–184K/yrSeen 6 days agoSeen in employer's feed 6 days ago

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At a glance

Compensation
$136–184K/yr
Location
Herndon, VA
Work Authorization
US work authorization required

Olive lists jobs from US employers, including remote roles you can work from the United States.

Requirements

Credentials this posting asks for.

TS/SCI clearance

Job overview

Amazon Web Services is seeking a Security Engineer to protect infrastructure used by national security customers. The role responds to security incidents, coordinates cross-team actions, builds internal security tools, and balances technical risks with business needs. The engineer communicates risks and mitigations to leadership and helps establish security engineering best practices. Candidates must be U.S. citizens with an active TS/SCI clearance with polygraph; an associate degree or specified security credentials are accepted.

Skills & qualifications

RequiredNice to have

Skills

Incident ResponseLog AnalysisForensicsSecurity Tool DevelopmentRisk AssessmentCryptographyNetwork SecuritySoftware SecurityMalware AnalysisSecurity OperationsSecurity IntelligenceAWS ProductsCommunication

Qualifications

Associate's Degree or Above or GCIH or GSECActive TS/SCI Clearance With PolygraphUS Citizenship

Benefits

Medical Insurance
401(k) Match
Paid Time Off
Parental Leave

Full job description

Description

Amazon Web Services (AWS) is the leading cloud provider, providing virtual infrastructure, storage, networking, messaging, and many other services to customers all over the world. AWS runs a globally distributed environment, operating at massive levels of scale. Businesses, from start-ups to enterprises, run their operations and applications on AWS’s multi-tenant infrastructure. Governmental organizations are also looking to and depending on AWS for cloud solutions and services.

The AWS Security Incident Response team is seeking a focused Security Engineer who can take on a leadership role in responding to security issues in support of our National Security program. This engineer will work as a part of a growing team of security engineers who are focused on protecting the AWS infrastructure that is used by our national security customers. Our security engineers perform many duties during an average day: log analysis, incident response, forensics, system/tooling development, and risk assessment, just to name a few. You must thrive in high-pressure situations, think like both an attacker and defender, and drive relevant teams to take the right actions in the right time frames to mitigate risks. They also need to balance technical risks against business needs and be able to articulate risks and mitigations to members of leadership at various levels.

You should have a good mix of deep technical knowledge and a demonstrated background in information security. We value broad and deep technical knowledge, specifically in the fields of cryptography, network security, software security, malware analysis, forensics, security operations, incident response, and emergent security intelligence.

This position requires that the candidate selected be a US Citizen and must currently possess and maintain an active TS/SCI security clearance with polygraph.

Key job responsibilities

You should be able to accomplish most of the following:

  • Confidently and intelligently respond to security incidents, and proactively consider how to prevent the same type of incidents from occurring in the future.

  • Design and coordinate cohesive responses to security events that involve multiple teams across the organization.

  • Build security utilities and tools for internal use that enable you and your fellow Security Engineers to operate at high speed and wide scale.

  • Ability to communicate effectively at multiple levels of sensitivity, and multiple audiences.

  • Recognize, adopt and instill the best practices in security engineering fields throughout the organization: development, cryptography, network security, security operations, incident response, security intelligence.

  • Fulfill regular on-call responsibilities.

A day in the life

Your day opens with a scan of overnight security telemetry across GovCloud and U.S. ADC regions, where you triage alerts and pull threads on anything anomalous. When an incident surfaces, you move fast: analyzing logs, running forensics, and coordinating a cohesive response across multiple teams while keeping leadership informed in clear, risk-framed language. Between investigations, you build tooling that lets your fellow engineers detect and respond at greater speed and scale. You weigh technical risk against business needs, instill security best practices org-wide, and share on-call duty. Thinking like both attacker and defender, you protect the infrastructure our national security customers depend on.

About the team

Diverse Experiences

Amazon Security values diverse experiences. Even if you do not meet all of the qualifications and skills listed in the job description, we encourage candidates to apply. If your career is just starting, hasn’t followed a traditional path, or includes alternative experiences, don’t let it stop you from applying.

Why Amazon Security?

At Amazon, security is central to maintaining customer trust and delivering delightful customer experiences. Our organization is responsible for creating and maintaining a high bar for security across all of Amazon’s products and services. We offer talented security professionals the chance to accelerate their careers with opportunities to build experience in a wide variety of areas including cloud, devices, retail, entertainment, healthcare, operations, and physical stores.

Inclusive Team Culture

In Amazon Security, it’s in our nature to learn and be curious. Ongoing DEI events and learning experiences inspire us to continue learning and to embrace our uniqueness. Addressing the toughest security challenges requires that we seek out and celebrate a diversity of ideas, perspectives, and voices.

Training & Career Growth

We’re continuously raising our performance bar as we strive to become Earth’s Best Employer. That’s why you’ll find endless knowledge-sharing, training, and other career-advancing resources here to help you develop into a better-rounded professional.

Work/Life Balance

We value work-life harmony. Achieving success at work should never come at the expense of sacrifices at home, which is why flexible work hours and arrangements are part of our culture. When we feel supported in the workplace and at home, there’s nothing we can’t achieve.

Basic Qualifications

  • Associate's degree or above, or GCIH (GIAC Certified Incident Handler) or GSEC (GIAC Security Essentials) or Security- Current, active US Government Security Clearance of TS/SCI with Polygraph

Preferred Qualifications

  • Experience with AWS products and services

Amazon is an equal opportunity employer and does not discriminate on the basis of protected veteran status, disability, or other legally protected status.

Our inclusive culture empowers Amazonians to deliver the best results for our customers. If you have a disability and need a workplace accommodation or adjustment during the application and hiring process, including support for the interview or onboarding process, please visit https://amazon.jobs/content/en/how-we-hire/accommodations for more information. If the country/region you’re applying in isn’t listed, please contact your Recruiting Partner.

The base salary range for this position is listed below. Your Amazon package will include sign-on payments and restricted stock units (RSUs). Final compensation will be determined based on factors including experience, qualifications, and location. Amazon also offers comprehensive benefits including health insurance (medical, dental, vision, prescription, Basic Life & AD&D insurance and option for Supplemental life plans, EAP, Mental Health Support, Medical Advice Line, Flexible Spending Accounts, Adoption and Surrogacy Reimbursement coverage), 401(k) matching, paid time off, and parental leave. Learn more about our benefits at https://amazon.jobs/en/benefits .

USA, VA, Herndon - 136,000.00 - 184,000.00 USD annually

How this job compares

Set against the 4,187 open Security Engineer jobs on Olive Jobs, counted November 3, 2026.

Pay
  • This posting$136–184K/yr
  • Virginia median$122–190K/yr255 salary ranges
  • US median$132–208K/yr3,409 salary ranges

This range's midpoint, $160K, is close to the Virginia median midpoint ($159K) — in the middle half of Security Engineer salary ranges in Virginia.

Openings
Olive Jobs lists 294 open Security Engineer jobs in Virginia and 4,187 across the US. 8% of them nationwide are listed as remote or flexible.
Hiring the most in Virginia
Experience
Security Engineer postings that state a minimum ask for 5 years of experience at the median; the middle half ask for 4 to 8 years (3,615 postings).
Education
1,313 of the 4,187 open Security Engineer jobs (31%) ask for a bachelor's degree or higher.

Counted across the open, public US postings on Olive Jobs on November 3, 2026. Pay medians are the middle values of the low ends and of the high ends of postings that list both ends of a range in the same cadence (a yearly salary or an hourly rate); a range's midpoint is halfway between its ends. Pay and experience figures resting on fewer than 20 postings are left out.

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