Senior Security Engineer (Detection Engineer)

We're taking an engineering-led approach to detection and response, building internal capability and technical depth alongside AI-assisted tooling. You’ll work as an individual contributor, driving workstreams from problem definition through delivery, breaking complex problems into actionable work, and executing independently within agreed architecture and practices
Permanent role based in Melbourne or Sydney as well as open to remote in other Australian locations
We're REA
With bold and ambitious goals, REA Group is changing the way the world experiences property. No matter where you're at on your property journey, we're here to help with every step - whether that's finding or financing your next home.
Our people are the key to our success. At the heart of everything we do, is a thriving culture centred around high performance and care. We are purpose driven and collaborative, which drives innovation and our ability to make a real impact. As such, we’re proud to have been named one of Australia’s Best Workplaces four times since 2021 — including third place in 2025 — plus Best Workplace for Women in 2023 and Best Workplace in Technology in 2024 and 2025. These listings are testament to every person who helps make REA a great place to work.
Where the team fits in
The Detection & Response team helps REA identify, investigate and respond to cyber threats across our environment. The team monitors security signals, validates alerts, investigates suspicious activity and leads or supports coordinated incident response including technical investigation and containment in partnership with engineering teams. With an increasing focus on detection and response engineering, the team continually strengthens REA’s ability to spot threats earlier, reduce the impact of incidents and learn from events to improve our security posture.
What the role is all about
As a Senior Security Engineer in Detection & Response, you’ll help modernise REA’s detection capability by operating and improving the data flows, telemetry integrations and detection workflows that power the detection platform. You’ll use AI-assisted tooling to develop, review and validate high-fidelity detections and response automations, applying sound security judgement and detection-as-code practices to improve coverage and alert quality. You’ll evaluate threat intelligence in the context of REA’s environment to focus detection coverage on relevant adversaries, investigate suspicious activity, and independently coordinate technical containment and response. You’ll work with and be supported by a diverse, dynamic, and well-rounded Detection & Response team. Working with wider Security and Engineering teams, you’ll improve detection quality and resilience over time.
Day to day of the job
Configure and operate the data flows that support our detection platform, including log forwarding, transformation and cost optimisation, working with Platform and Cloud teams where changes to existing integrations are needed.
Define the threats and behaviours to detect, then review, tune and validate the high-fidelity detections and correlation logic that identify malicious activity across our environment, delivering measurable improvements in detection coverage and alert quality.
Develop and maintain automated detection testing and validation processes to identify configuration drift, regressions and coverage gaps.
Analyse security events and logs to identify malicious activity, patterns and emerging attack techniques during investigations and proactive threat hunting.
Assess relevant threat intelligence and emerging attack techniques in the context of REA’s environment, translating the findings into improved detection coverage and signal quality.
Investigate security alerts and incidents, independently determine whether containment is required, coordinate technical response activities, and communicate findings, actions and risks to the wider incident response team and business stakeholders as needed.
Develop response playbooks and automation workflows to support rapid and effective incident containment and response.
Partner with product, platform and engineering teams to ensure new systems and changes have appropriate logging, monitoring and detection coverage.
Share knowledge with other Security and engineering teams, contributing to documentation, operational practices and continuous improvement.
Who we’re looking for
Hands-on experience configuring and operating data flows, including log forwarding, data transformation, API integrations, cost-optimised ingestion and observability pipeline tools, with the ability to work with Platform and Cloud teams when existing integrations need changes.
Practical experience working in cloud environments (AWS, GCP or Azure), with an understanding of cloud and application architectures, logging, monitoring, native security controls and common failure modes, and how to translate these into detection and response requirements.
Practical experience defining the threats and behaviours to detect, and reviewing, tuning and validating high-fidelity detections through established detection-engineering practices and repository workflows.
Strong log analysis skills, with the ability to parse, correlate and investigate security events across diverse log sources, and a working knowledge of scripting to understand and work effectively with security automation and SOAR workflows.
Experience with security observability tooling including EDR, SIEM, CNAPP, SOAR, and identity platforms, understanding their telemetry and how to leverage it for high-fidelity detections
Solid understanding of attacker techniques and frameworks (e.g. MITRE ATT&CK) and how to translate threat intelligence into effective detections and coverage assessments
Familiarity with modern DevOps practices including CI/CD pipelines and automated deployment for security tooling
Ability to build automation workflows for security operations and document operational procedures through playbooks, runbooks and detection test cases
The REA experience
The physical, mental, emotional and financial health of our people is something we’ll never stop caring about. This is a place to learn and grow.
Some of our Perks & Benefits include:
A hybrid and flexible approach to working
Flexible leave options including, birthday leave and purchase additional leave
Flexible parental leave offering for primary and secondary carers
Our Because We Care program offers employees volunteering leave, community grants, matched payroll giving and our Community Café donates 100% of revenue to charity
Hackdays so you can bring your big ideas to life
Our commitment to Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion
We are committed to providing a working environment that embraces and values diversity, equity and inclusion. We believe teams with diverse ideas and experiences are more creative, more effective and fuel disruptive thinking. If you've got the skills, dedication and enthusiasm to learn but don't necessarily meet every single point on the job description, please still get in touch.
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