Response Engineer - PhishGuard

Location: Austin, TX 

About the Department

Cloudforce One is Cloudflare's threat operations and research team, responsible for identifying and disrupting cyber threats ranging from sophisticated cyber criminal activity to nation-state sponsored advanced persistent threats (APTs). Cloudforce One works in close partnership with external organizations and internal Cloudflare teams, continuously developing operational tradecraft and expanding ever-growing sources of threat intelligence to enable expedited threat hunting and remediation.

Members of Cloudforce One are at the helm of leveraging an incredibly vast and varied set of data points that only one of the world's largest global networks can provide. The team analyzes these unique data points at massive scale and efficiency, synthesizing findings into actionable threat intelligence to better protect our customers.

About INTERDICT

I.N.T.E.R.D.I.C.T. (Identify, Neutralize, Triage, Engage, Respond, Disrupt, Integrate, Contain, Threat Hunting) is Cloudforce One's unified operational security organization responsible for identifying, analyzing, and responding to threats targeting Cloudflare and its customers. INTERDICT encompasses three main sub-functions:

• PhishGuard: Managed email threat detection and response service
• Cloudflare Managed Defense (CMD): Network and application security monitoring for 'Under Attack' mitigation support.
• Detection Engineering: ML model development and detection optimization

Together, INTERDICT provides comprehensive 24×7×365 protection across email, application, and network threat surfaces.

 

Role Summary

As a Response Engineer for PhishGuard, you will serve as the essential human intelligence layer responsible for identifying, tracking, and defeating sophisticated email-borne cyber threats like Business Email Compromise (BEC) and vendor fraud. You will operate within the INTERDICT organization, collaborating closely with internal teams like Detection Engineering, PREDICT (Threat Intelligence), and SIRT to hunt down adversaries and refine global security models. Our ideal candidate possesses deep forensic thoroughness, exceptional nuance detection, and a growth-minded curiosity to protect global organizations using one of the world's largest networks.

Role Responsibilities

• Conduct continuous, real-time monitoring of email threat queues to review and analyze sophisticated attacks flagged by Cloudflare Email Security automated systems.
• Investigate customer-reported submissions, execute proactive threat hunts targeting emerging patterns, and perform manual retraction or quarantine of verified malicious emails.
• Provide critical feedback to Detection Engineering to update machine learning models and contribute novel campaign data to global intelligence repositories.
• Identify nuanced threat patterns by correlating technical telemetry with behavioral indicators, generating detailed threat dossiers for impending organizational risks.
• Deliver direct crisis intervention and proactive phone notifications to customers regarding high-dollar BEC threats and active insider risks.
• Lead technical onboarding sessions for new customers, configuring internal system instances with bespoke detection rules, thresholds, and custom allow/block lists.
• Guide customers through their multi-year DMARC implementation journey toward strict "Reject" policy enforcement by conducting SPF and DKIM alignment audits.

Role Requirements (Must-Have Skills)

• Undergraduate degree in Computer Science, Information Security, Information Systems, or equivalent practical experience.
• 5+ years of experience tracking and analyzing complex cyber campaigns utilizing technical indicators such as Domains, IP Addresses, and email headers.
• Proven expertise analyzing, investigating, and defending against highly targeted phishing, invoice fraud, and Business Email Compromise (BEC) attacks.
• Deep working knowledge of core email authentication protocols (SPF, DKIM, DMARC) and aggregate/forensic data interpretation.
• Hands-on experience utilizing AI LLM tools (such as OpenCode or Windsurf) to develop automations for daily analysis and productivity workflows.
• Excellent verbal and written English communication skills, with a strong ability to translate complex technical threats into actionable business intelligence for executive stakeholders.

Nice-to-Have Skills

• Relevant industry certifications such as GCIH, GCIA, CEH, Security+, or equivalent.
• Technical familiarity with regular expressions, YARA rules, SQL query formulation, and malicious file format analysis (e.g., Microsoft Office Documents, Adobe PDFs).
• Prior experience working within managed security services (MSSP) or customer-facing security consulting environments.
• Familiarity with the broader Cloudflare ecosystem, including Cloudflare Email Security, WAF, and Zero Trust architectures.