Engineering Manager, Applied Research (Remote)

What We Do

At runZero, we're a team of dreamers and creative thinkers who aren't afraid to shake up the status quo. Fixing what’s broken with legacy vulnerability management and overcoming persistent, decades-old problems requires a new approach.

Our platform provides a single source of truth for exposure management across the total attack surface. Without requiring agents, authentication, or appliances, runZero delivers  the most complete and accurate visibility into every asset and exposure across  internal, external, IT, OT, IoT, mobile, and cloud environments — including uncovering  unknown and unmanageable devices and broad classes of exposures that evade traditional tools. 

Founded by HD Moore (creator of Metasploit), runZero is trusted by more than 500 companies and 30,000 users worldwide to find and mitigate risks faster, meet compliance requirements, and improve overall security. See for yourself with a free trial!

Role

We're searching for a hands-on Engineering Manager, Applied Research who can lead and mentor a team while contributing directly to our mission of delivering industry-leading security intelligence. At runZero, we’re building the industry’s leading Exposure Management platform. As a research manager, you’ll lead and manage a team of researchers focused on developing our network scanner and accompanying security content including remote vulnerability and misconfiguration detections, device fingerprinting, protocol implementations and emergent risk queries.

This is a player-coach role: you’ll be guiding and upleveling the team, while also contributing directly to the research and content creation process. We’re looking for someone who thrives in both leadership and technical work, and who brings a strong work ethic, curiosity, and passion for the industry.

Responsibilities

• Lead, mentor, and grow a team of researchers focused on creating best-in-class vulnerability management and risk detection content.
• Lead prioritization and task delegation for the Applied Research team in partnership with Marketing and Engineering, ensuring the timely release of coverage and actionable intelligence on emerging risks.
• Adapt and extend open source and proprietary technologies, including the Nuclei vulnerability scanner, to produce highly performant and highly accurate vulnerability detections.
• Research and implement new techniques for active and passive asset discovery, including network protocol parsers and implementations, external and internal network scanning, and detection of IT, IoT and Operational Technology devices.
• Stay ahead of trends in vulnerability and threat intelligence to prioritize the most impactful research for customers.
• Share expertise through blogs, webcasts, and industry conferences.
• Foster a culture of curiosity, quality, and continuous improvement within the research team.

Requirements

• Hands-on technical expertise in one or more of: network scanning, device fingerprinting, or vulnerability detection.
• Proficiency in writing Go and experience working with large Go codebases.
• Deep understanding of modern networking protocols and network analysis tools (e.g., Wireshark).
• Familiarity with SQL and querying large datasets.
• Comfortable with regular expressions (and maybe even enjoy them).
• Experience mentoring or managing engineers/researchers, with the ability to inspire and uplevel a team.
• Strong communication skills, with the ability to collaborate across technical and non-technical teams.
• A proactive, problem-solving mindset and a passion for vulnerability research and exposure management.

Salary Range

runZero values transparency in the hiring process. According to our market data, we’re expecting this role to come in at a salary of about $225,000 - $275,000, plus stock options. We know that the talent market is always in flux, so please let us know if you believe we have advertised this role at the wrong salary band. 

Interview Process

We value your time and see the interview process as a critical two-way street, allowing us to assess your skills, strengths, and cultural fit while simultaneously providing you with a clear understanding of our company, our ways of working, and the expectations specific to the role you’re seeking. To this end, our interview process incorporates a combination of:

• Initial one-on-one interviews with a recruiter and manager  
• Panel interviews with the team
• Candidate challenge - a role-specific challenge designed for you to showcase your strengths and allow us to assess your skills in a hands-on exercise 
• A final interview, conducted either remotely or in-person if we haven't yet met face-to-face in previous rounds

How We Take Care Of You

• 🏡 Fully remote: runZero is a 100% remote company! While we aim to gather annually for kick-offs, our team thrives in the flexibility and freedom that remote work provides.
• 🥕 Benefits: We prioritize the well-being of our team members, which is why runZero pays for 100% of the premium platinum-level medical, vision, dental, life, and short-term disability coverage for you and your dependents. 
• 🔐 401k: We match 4% of 401K contributions 
• 🏝️ Time off: We offer unlimited PTO, 11 official company holidays, and a recharge week at the end of the year
• 🍼 Paid parental leave: We offer 12 weeks of paid parental leave
• 🎉 Culture of collaboration: Our team is diverse, representing various backgrounds and perspectives, which fosters an inclusive and vibrant environment. With flexible schedules and supportive coworkers who listen to one another, runZero promotes a culture of collaboration.
• And more!

For more information on what it's like to work at runZero, please visit our employee spotlight page!

Applications

runZero positions are currently restricted to the United States and the United Kingdom. All other International applications will not be considered.

runZero is an Equal Opportunity Employer and does not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, color, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, age, disability, national origin, veteran status, marital status, ancestry, nationality or any other basis covered by applicable law. 

We encourage under-represented applicants to apply, even if you don’t think you fit 100% of the criteria (nobody ever does)!