Splunk Detection Engineer

Title: Splunk Detection Engineer

W-2 Only (no 1099)

Must be a U.S. Citizen

Job Description

Background:
Company promotes the safe and secure use of technology and providing a variety of cybersecurity services including consultation, protection technologies, detection technologies, cybersecurity education and awareness, cybersecurity incident management, vulnerability management, compliance, and cybersecurity risk management.

Contract Position: Full Time, 40 hour work week

Period of Performance: 1 Year

Scope:
The Splunk Detection Engineer will play an important role in ensuring that security logs are appropriately formatted, ingested, tagged, and used to detect possible security events. Typical tasks may include:

• Integrate new data sources, which may include databases, APIs, files, etc. This may involve setting standards and working with IT administrators to update their configurations
• Validating and creating appropriate configurations for CIM compliant logs
• Processing requests from cybersecurity analysts for new detections within Splunk Enterprise Security
• Analyzing existing logs to identify poorly formatted logs and potential gaps when implementing new detections
• Adding and maintaining threat feeds within Splunk Enterprise Security
• Monitoring the performance of and tuning detections
• Managing asset and identity inventory within Splunk Enterprise Security
• Creating and maintaining new Splunk apps
• Recommending additions or changes to Splunk or its data models to meet detection needs
• Developing searches, reports, and other functionalities for cyber-based use-cases, including active response, intrusion detection, vulnerability management, and related use cases
• Assisting users with creating and optimizing searches and dashboards and mentoring others in good development of said resources.
• Attend online/Teams meetings with team and others as appropriate
• Work with team to provide status on current task, suggest improvements, discuss implementation, etc.

Objectives:
The ideal candidate will support the projects and tasks associated with cybersecurity log collection, analysis, and event detection.

Technical Direction of Work:
Report to the Deputy Chief Information Security Officer within the Business & Information Services division; including daily guidance and collaboration with others in the Cyber Security Program Office (CSPO).

REMOTE:
Typically, the work is performed remotely. For the candidate within driving distance of the Lab, there may be rare times to be onsite for in-person meetings, assessments, or presentations. Most of the Business Information Services (BIS) Division works remotely and are rarely onsite. If the candidate is out of state, too far away from the Lab, onsite meetings are not feasible to attend and not required.

Expectation/Deliverables:
A candidate is expected to:

• Capture business requirements and implement the requirements
• Analyze data and perform initial planning to address identified issues
• Assist with the creation of playbooks to address identified issues from analysts
• Seek to understand the intention of detections and corresponding playbooks
• Provide basic feedback on existing playbooks and detections
• Identify telemetry quality and visibility issues (SIEM parsing/normalization, EDR/XDR sensor health, asset/identity tagging).

An improved candidate would also:

• Provide advanced recommendations to address gaps in logging and detections based on an analysis of threats and data
• Create detailed and thorough testing plans to ensure higher chance of accurate detections
• Produce clear metrics and reports (FP rate, backlog) for technical and executive audiences

An excellent candidate would also:

• Create advanced use cases for detections based on an analysis of threats and data, including sample criteria to identify the behavior and mapping detections to MITRE Telecommunication&CK
• Drive continuous improvements to existing processes or tooling
• Perform quality reviews and improve detections and actions
• Coach, guide, teach others on the team in use of Enterprise Security

Minimum Qualifications:

• Significant experience with Splunk and Splunk Enterprise Security
• Significant experience with event logging solutions (e.g., Splunk Universal Forwarder, syslog, Cribl)
• Experience with ticketing/case management.
• Experience with Git pipelines
• Familiarity with using Linux CLI
• Ability to craft queries using common languages; comfort with regex, JSON and APIs; basic scripting in Python/PowerShell/Bash.
• Excellent analytical, problem-solving, and communication skills both with stakeholders, peers, and internal customers; able to operate under pressure in a shift or on-call environment.

Preferred Additional Qualifications

• Strong grasp of TCP/IP, OSI model, and common protocols ( DNS, SMTP). Windows/Linux/macOS fundamentals; Active Directory/Azure AD concepts; basic cloud logging.
• Experience in system and network administration.
• Relevant cybersecurity experience including investigations and data analysis.
• Experience with SOAR tools and automation development.
• Experience using identity security/management tools (e.g., Entra ID, Active Directory, Shibboleth, CrowdStrike Identity Protection).
• Cloud security experience (e.g., CloudTrail/GuardDuty, Azure Defender/M365, GCP Security Command Center).

Relevant certifications (nice to have): Security , CySA , SSCP; Microsoft SC-200/AZ-500; Splunk Core/Enterprise Security (Splunk Enterprise Security Certified Admin; Splunk Core Certified Consultant; Splunk Certified Cybersecurity Defense Analyst; Splunk Certified Cybersecurity Defense Engineer; Splunk Enterprise Certified Admin; Splunk Enterprise Certified Architect); GIAC (GCIH, GCIA, GCFA, GCTI); cloud provider security certs.

Experience:

• Considerable knowledge using and administering Splunk.
• Staying up to date with the latest cybersecurity threats, vulnerabilities, and best practices.
• Strong analytical and problem-solving skills.
• Meticulous attention to detail to ensure thorough assessments and accurate reporting.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills to effectively convey findings and recommendations to technical and non-technical stakeholders.
• Ability to work collaboratively with other cybersecurity professionals, IT staff, and external vendors.
• Experience and skill in conducting audits or reviews of technical systems.
• Experience working in a government environment.
• Experience working in a distributed IT environment.
• Ability to qualify for HSPD-12 card for use in two-factor authentication.
• Able to work both independently and as a contributing member of a small technical team
• Able to disseminate knowledge to current staff.

Government-Furnished Property:

• Company will supply a government-furnished laptop, PIV Card, and PIV Card reader.

Computer Protection Program:
The contractor shall adhere to all policies and procedures of the ANL Computer Protection Program, must not bypass any procedures established to protect data, applications, hardware, or communications at ANL, must maintain a work environment that will satisfy audit, privacy, and protection requirements, and must report any findings of inadequacies to the technical contact and the BIS Computer Protection Program Representative.

The following expectations are part of working remote:

• Working remotely outside of scheduled times requires supervisor approval prior to performing that remote work.
• While working remotely, just like when onsite, all scheduled meetings must be attended (using approved remote communication tools).
• The candidate must be available for consultation during all scheduled work time, reachable by email, phone, chat, or other approved means.
• Performance will be monitored to determine productivity for remote work at least matches that when onsite. If performance and deliverables decline, remote work may be suspended.
• Should a situation arise that requires the candidate to be onsite while scheduled to work remotely, accommodation will be made to reschedule the remote work, if desired.
• The remote work privilege may be revoked at any time at the discretion of Company
• A flexible work schedule may also be possible if the schedule is agreed to by the candidate and approved by the supervisor and sponsor.
• Should the laboratory close operations due to weather or other circumstances, remote work is preferred.
• Lastly, the candidate must track their remote work schedule into the CSPO absence calendar and be approved by CSPO supervisor.

Place of Performance :
Work will be performed remotely (within the confines of the United States of America), and team communication will be done through Microsoft tools such as Microsoft Teams and Microsoft Outlook.

Period of Performance
Work would begin in early October 2025, for 40 hours per week for 1 year.