Key Responsibilities and Required Skills for Offensive Security Engineer

🎯 Role Definition

An Offensive Security Engineer designs and executes proactive, simulated adversary engagements to identify and remediate security weaknesses across applications, networks, cloud environments, and user processes. This role blends deep technical craft—penetration testing, exploit development, reverse engineering, and attack simulation—with clear vulnerability reporting, stakeholder communication, and remediation guidance. The Offensive Security Engineer partners with product, development, cloud, and security operations teams to improve overall security posture through measurable testing programs, threat emulation based on MITRE ATT&CK, and continuous improvement of detection and response capabilities.

📈 Career Progression

Typical Career Path

Entry Point From:

Security Analyst / SOC Analyst with a focus on proactive detection and hunting.
Junior Penetration Tester or Application Security Engineer transitioning into offensive engagements.
Systems Administrator or Network Engineer with hands-on security testing experience.
Software Engineer with secure coding and vulnerability discovery experience.

Advancement To:

Senior Offensive Security Engineer / Principal Penetration Tester
Red Team Lead or Head of Red Team Operations
Principal Security Researcher or Exploit Developer
Director of Security Engineering or VP of Security Assurance

Lateral Moves:

Threat Hunter / Detection Engineer
Application Security or Secure Engineering Lead
Cloud Security Engineer or Cloud Security Architect
Incident Response / DFIR (Digital Forensics & Incident Response) Specialist

Core Responsibilities

Primary Functions

Plan, scope, and execute full lifecycle penetration tests against web, mobile, API, network, and cloud targets; produce detailed, prioritized findings and remediation guidance that are actionable for engineering teams and security leadership.
Design and run red team adversary emulation campaigns that map to MITRE ATT&CK techniques, validate detection capabilities, and assess the organization’s people, processes, and technology defenses.
Develop and validate custom exploits, post-exploitation tools, and proof-of-concept code where appropriate to demonstrate the real-world impact of identified vulnerabilities and to validate remediation.
Perform deep Active Directory and identity federation attack simulations, including credential harvesting, Kerberoasting, DCSync, and lateral movement scenarios to evaluate identity and privilege management controls.
Conduct cloud-native penetration tests across AWS, Azure, and GCP environments including IaaS, PaaS, serverless, containerized workloads, and misconfiguration assessments; provide prescriptive remediation steps tailored to cloud architecture.
Execute application security assessments including static and dynamic analysis, manual code review for logical and business logic flaws, and exploitation of authentication, authorization, session management, and injection vulnerabilities.
Lead security assessments of container and orchestration platforms (Docker, Kubernetes), including insecure images, supply chain weaknesses, misconfigured RBAC, network policies, and secrets management.
Build and maintain automated offensive tooling, attack playbooks, and scripted test harnesses (Python, Go, Bash, PowerShell) to scale testing coverage and repeatability across environments.
Collaborate with blue team defenders to tune SIEM/EDR detections and building analytics; run purple team exercises that iterate on detection rules, alerts, and response playbooks until coverage goals are met.
Conduct phishing and social engineering campaigns in accordance with legal and policy constraints to test human attack surfaces, measure susceptibility, and recommend training and mitigations.
Triages, validates, and escalates high-risk findings to senior leadership and cross-functional teams; tracks remediation progress and re-tests remediated systems to verify fixes.
Maintain an up-to-date threat catalog and adversary emulation library informed by OSINT, threat intelligence feeds, vulnerability disclosures (CVE), and industry reports.
Create and deliver clear, executive-level briefings and technical reports that quantify risk, provide remediation timelines, and explain exploitability, impact, and detectability to both technical and non-technical audiences.
Mentor and train engineering teams, junior penetration testers, and internal stakeholders on secure development practices, threat modeling, and how to interpret and remediate offensive security findings effectively.
Collaborate with product and engineering leadership to integrate security testing into CI/CD pipelines, including pre-merge and pre-deploy scanning, automated regression tests, and staged manual exploit verification.
Conduct hardware and embedded device testing as required, including firmware analysis, UART/JTAG access, and wireless protocol assessments for IoT and specialized equipment.
Lead discovery and responsible disclosure processes for third-party and open-source dependencies; coordinate with vendor security teams and manage timelines for vulnerability remediation and public advisories.
Maintain and contribute to a library of validated exploits, payloads, and reusable artifacts for rapid, repeatable testing that adheres to legal and ethical constraints.
Participate in security product evaluations and proof-of-concept testing for offensive tooling (e.g., C2 frameworks, exploit frameworks, vulnerability scanners) and recommend best-of-breed solutions to improve team capability.
Keep pace with emerging attack techniques, zero-days, and public exploit tooling by researching and reverse engineering malware, threat actor tradecraft, and newly disclosed vulnerabilities.
Support incident response with offensive insights during complex compromises by performing live forensics, attack reconstruction, and identifying likely initial access paths and attacker objectives.
Ensure all offensive testing is executed under established rules of engagement, legal approvals, and stakeholder communication plans to minimize business impact and maintain auditability.

Secondary Functions

Assist security leadership in defining offensive security program strategy, testing cadence, and KPIs that align with enterprise risk objectives and compliance requirements.
Maintain a prioritized testing backlog and coordinate scheduling with application owners, cloud teams, and platform teams to maximize coverage and reduce business disruption.
Support security training initiatives by generating realistic attack scenarios and lab exercises for developers, SREs, and security operations teams.
Provide subject matter expertise for procurement, security architecture reviews, and the design of new services to embed offensive thinking early in product lifecycles.
Contribute to the organization’s threat modeling and risk assessment processes by translating test findings into measurable control improvements and risk reductions.
Participate in public or private bug bounty program coordination and triage, including validating researcher reports and integrating high-confidence findings into remediation workflows.
Document test methodologies, playbooks, and post-engagement retrospectives to continually improve offensive program maturity and repeatable testing practices.
Support ad hoc requests for pre-deployment security reviews and red-team-style stress tests of new features, APIs, and integrations.

Required Skills & Competencies

Hard Skills (Technical)

Penetration testing across web, mobile, API, network, and cloud platforms with hands-on exploitation experience and evidence-based reporting.
Red teaming and adversary emulation experience using frameworks such as MITRE ATT&CK to structure threat scenarios and validate detections.
Exploit development and proof-of-concept creation, including memory corruption, web logic exploitation, and automated payload delivery methods.
Reverse engineering skills for binaries and firmware using tools like IDA Pro, Ghidra, radare2, or Binary Ninja to analyze malware or native application vulnerabilities.
Proficiency in scripting and automation (Python, Bash, PowerShell, Go) to build tools, automate recon, and scale assessments.
Experience with common offensive tooling and frameworks: Burp Suite (Pro), Metasploit, Cobalt Strike or equivalent C2 frameworks, Nmap, Nessus/Qualys/OpenVAS, and SAST/DAST tools.
Deep understanding of Active Directory attacks, Windows internals, Kerberos, LDAP, and privilege escalation techniques.
Cloud security assessment skills for AWS, Azure, and GCP including IAM, misconfigurations, template/infra-as-code reviews (Terraform, ARM templates), and serverless risks.
Container and orchestration security knowledge (Docker, Kubernetes) including image scanning, RBAC, and network policy testing.
Familiarity with SIEM/EDR solutions (Splunk, Elastic, Microsoft Sentinel, CrowdStrike, Carbon Black) to validate telemetry and tune detections post-engagement.
Secure code review and static analysis experience, including identifying logic flaws, insecure deserialization, broken access controls, and cryptographic misuse.
Threat intelligence and OSINT gathering to build realistic attack chains and prioritize likely adversary techniques.
Knowledge of vulnerability management lifecycle, CVE tracking, and responsible disclosure processes.
Experience integrating security tests into CI/CD and automated pipelines to reduce shift-left friction and minimize regressions.

Soft Skills

Excellent written and verbal communication with the ability to produce concise technical reports and clear executive summaries that drive remediation action.
Strong stakeholder management and interpersonal skills to coordinate multi-team engagements and drive remediation through engineering owners.
Problem-solving and critical thinking with a bias for investigative research, creative exploit chaining, and root cause analysis.
High ethical standards, sound judgment, and the ability to operate within legal, compliance, and rules-of-engagement constraints.
Project and time management skills to manage multiple concurrent assessments, sprints, and red team campaigns.
Mentorship and teaching capability to develop junior testers and upskill engineers through workshops and hands-on labs.
Adaptability and continuous learning mindset to stay current with rapidly evolving adversary techniques and security technologies.
Attention to detail and rigor in documentation, test repeatability, and evidence capture to support remediation and incident response workflows.

Education & Experience

Educational Background

Minimum Education:

Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Information Security, Computer Engineering, or equivalent practical experience and certifications.

Preferred Education:

Master’s degree in Cybersecurity, Information Assurance, or related technical discipline, or equivalent advanced practical experience.

Relevant Fields of Study:

Computer Science / Software Engineering
Cybersecurity / Information Security
Electrical or Computer Engineering
Forensics, Applied Cryptography, or Systems Engineering

Experience Requirements

Typical Experience Range:

3–8 years of hands-on offensive security, penetration testing, or red team experience.

Preferred:

5+ years of progressive offensive security experience with demonstrated leadership of engagements, tool development, and cross-functional remediation programs.
Professional certifications such as OSCP, OSCE, CREST, eJPT, GPEN, GWAPT, or GIAC (e.g., GREM, GXPN) are highly desirable and often expected for senior roles.