Athena ยท 3 weeks ago
Security Validation Engineer (Red Team)
Palo Alto, CA
Full-time
Onsite
Mid Level
$80K/yr - $160K/yrAthena is seeking a Security Validation Engineer to join their Red Team. This role focuses on identifying and exploiting vulnerabilities to simulate real-world adversary behavior, helping to evaluate and strengthen the organization's security posture through rigorous testing and collaboration.
Career PlanningConsultingPersonal DevelopmentRecruiting
Hiring Manager
Yen Gage
Responsibilities
Plan, design, and execute red team engagements across infrastructure, applications, and cloud environments
Conduct manual and automated penetration testing to identify exploitable vulnerabilities and misconfigurations
Develop and execute adversary emulation scenarios to validate detection and response capabilities
Perform end-to-end attack simulations, including tactics such as phishing, lateral movement, privilege escalation, and data exfiltration
Build and maintain custom tools, scripts, or frameworks to support red team operations
Validate the effectiveness of blue team defenses and provide actionable feedback for improving detection, prevention, and response measures
Document findings with clear risk impact assessment and remediation guidance
Collaborate closely with incident response, threat intelligence, and engineering teams to share attacker tradecraft and improve security controls
Stay current with emerging threats, vulnerabilities, and offensive security techniques
Qualification
Required
Strong knowledge of penetration testing methodologies (OWASP, MITRE ATT&CK, NIST, etc.)
Proficiency in exploitation frameworks, scripting, and tools (e.g., Cobalt Strike, Metasploit, Burp Suite, BloodHound, Python, PowerShell)
Hands-on experience with attack vectors across networks, operating systems, applications, and cloud platforms
Familiarity with Active Directory attacks, privilege escalation, persistence techniques, and evasion methods
Understanding of enterprise defense mechanisms such as EDR, SIEM, logging, and network monitoring
Solid problem-solving and analytical skills with the ability to think like an attacker
Excellent written and verbal communication skills for documenting findings and presenting results to both technical and non-technical audiences
Preferred
Prior experience in a Red Team, Purple Team, or advanced penetration testing role
Knowledge of adversary emulation frameworks and threat modeling
Scripting capability (Python, PowerShell, Bash, or Go)
OSCP, OSCE, OSEP, CRTP, or similar offensive security certifications
Knowledge of cloud security (AWS, Azure, GCP) attack surfaces
Company
Athena
Athena is a business consultancy that provides document management, networking, administration management, and recruitment solutions.
Founded in 2018
1001-5000 employees
H1B Sponsorship
Athena has a track record of offering H1B sponsorships. Please note that this does not
guarantee sponsorship for this specific role. Below presents additional info for your
reference. (Data Powered by US Department of Labor)
Distribution of Different Job Fields Receiving Sponsorship
Represents job field similar to this job
Trends of Total Sponsorships
2025 (9)
2024 (4)
2023 (3)
2021 (3)
2020 (3)
Funding
Current Stage
Late StageTotal Funding
unknown2024-02-23Series A
Leadership Team
Jonathan Swanson
Founder
Company data provided by crunchbase