Sr. Associate, Offensive Security

Role Summary

The Senior Associate, Offensive Security supports offensive security activities that proactively identify, validate, and help prioritize security weaknesses across the digital environment. This role contributes to penetration testing, adversary simulation, and purple team exercises that continuously assess the organization's exposure to real-world threats. Operating within a highly regulated pharmaceutical environment, the Senior Associate partners closely with detection, remediation, engineering, and risk teams to ensure findings are clearly documented, actionable, and translated into measurable security improvements.

Role Responsibilities

• Conduct offensive security testing activities including penetration tests and adversary simulation exercises across on-premises, cloud, and hybrid environments.
• Support red team and purple team engagements by executing test plans, collecting evidence, and helping evaluate defensive control effectiveness.
• Identify, validate, and document security weaknesses, including technical details, proof of concept evidence, and clear remediation recommendations.
• Assist with translating offensive findings into actionable improvement items for detection, engineering, and remediation teams.
• Contribute to threat-informed testing by mapping observed techniques to common attacker behaviors and helping highlight realistic attack paths.
• Maintain high quality reporting standards and ensure deliverables are accurate, complete, and aligned to ethical testing expectations and internal requirements.
• Support continuous improvement efforts for offensive security tooling, automation, repeatable test methods, and playbooks.
• Collaborate with cross-functional partners (e.g., detection, incident response, vulnerability management, infrastructure, cloud) to coordinate testing logistics and minimize business disruption.
• Escalate complex technical issues, high-risk findings, or unexpected conditions.

Basic Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in Information Security, Computer Science, Engineering, or a related field with at least 2 years of experience in cybersecurity with hands-on focus in offensive security, penetration testing, vulnerability research; OR a master's degree with more than 0+ years of experience; OR an associate's degree with 6 years of experience; OR a high school diploma (or equivalent) with 8 years of relevant experience.
• Practical experience executing penetration tests or security assessments, including reconnaissance, exploitation validation, and reporting.
• Strong understanding of common attack techniques and enterprise security concepts across identity, endpoints, networks, and cloud services.
• Ability to clearly document technical findings and communicate risk and remediation guidance to technical stakeholders.
• Working knowledge of at least one scripting/programming language commonly used for security work (e.g., Python, PowerShell, Bash).
• Strong collaboration skills and ability to operate in a process-driven, highly regulated environment.

Preferred Qualifications

• Strong hands-on knowledge of red team and adversary emulation methodologies (MITRE ATT&CK-aligned).
• Application, cloud, network, and identity penetration testing.
• Social engineering and phishing simulations (where appropriate).
• Tooling and frameworks commonly used in offensive security.
• Experience in pharmaceutical, biotech, life sciences, or similarly regulated industries.
• Demonstrated capability supporting offensive security testing in cloud or hybrid environments.
• Exposure to partnering with detection engineering / SOC teams to improve detections based on offensive findings.
• Experience working in regulated industries (e.g., healthcare, life sciences, pharmaceuticals) or environments with high compliance expectations.
• Relevant certifications (e.g., CISSP, OSCP, CRTO, GPEN/GXPN), or similar offensive security credentials.
• Demonstrated interest in improving repeatability through tooling, automation, and standardized playbooks.