Security Research Manager

Established in 2022, Guardz rapidly emerged as a noteworthy player in the cybersecurity sphere, securing $85M in funding and rallying a dedicated team of 100 industry professionals. Our vision is to foster a safer digital landscape for small and medium businesses across the globe. To this end, we introduced our comprehensive all-in-one Secure & Insure platform, and continue to grow and expand our team, our partnerships and our revenue.

Guardz is seeking a Security Research Manager to lead our security research vision and execution across identity, cloud, endpoint, and emerging threat domains.

This is a high-impact leadership role focused on product-driven security research. You will own Guardz's security research strategy, work in close partnership with Product, and ensure that deep research insights are consistently translated into production-grade product capabilities.

You will build the foundations of how security research operates at Guardz - defining methodologies, processes, and knowledge-sharing mechanisms - while directly shaping Guardz's detection and security control roadmap.

Responsibilities:

• Own and drive Guardz's security research strategy in close alignment with Product & Engineering.
• Lead the research, design, and evolution of Guardz's detection and security control capabilities across identity, cloud, endpoint, and emerging threat domains.
• Partner with Product to define and maintain the security research-driven roadmap, shaping both near-term priorities and long-term strategy.
• Translate attacker behavior analysis, threat intelligence, and telemetry insights into concrete product requirements and capabilities.
• Ensure security research outputs are consistently converted into production-grade features, not standalone research or proofs of concept.
• Define and establish processes, methodologies, and quality standards for security research and detection development across Guardz.
• Guide the full lifecycle of research-driven initiatives, from hypothesis and validation through implementation, deployment, and iteration.
• Continuously assess detection coverage, effectiveness, and false positives, driving improvements over time.
• Lead, mentor, and set technical direction for security researchers, ensuring high analytical and execution standards.
• Influence product and architectural decisions related to detections, prevention mechanisms, and security controls.
• Expand Guardz's research focus beyond identity to cover broader attack surfaces, abuse scenarios, and defensive techniques.
• Act as the security research authority within product and engineering discussions.
  
  

• 7+ years of experience in security research, detection engineering, threat research, or advanced threat analytics.
• Experience leading or mentoring security researchers or detection engineers.
• Deep understanding of modern attacker behaviors, attack chains, and MITRE ATT&CK.
• Proven ability to translate research into scalable product capabilities.
• Hands-on experience collaborating with Product and Engineering teams.
• Strong analytical and scripting skills (Python, SQL) for validation and analysis.
• Experience with SIEM, EDR, XDR, or cloud security platforms (e.g., Splunk, Sentinel, Chronicle).
• Strategic mindset combined with strong execution skills.
  
  

• Experience with cloud security posture, misconfiguration research, or identity attack paths.
• Familiarity with large-scale analytics platforms (BigQuery, Splunk, Elastic).
• Experience designing preventative security controls, not just detections.
• Background in high-growth startups or building research functions