Staff Security Engineer - EU / UK

We are seeking a UK-based Staff Security Engineer to serve as a technical leader within our Security Operations and Response Team. As a senior technical responder, you will lead our incident response program, proactively monitor Marqeta's environment for cyber threats, and serve as incident commander during security events of all severity levels. You will establish response methodologies aligned with the NIST Incident Response Lifecycle, maintain the cybersecurity incident response plan, and drive continuous improvement of our security operations. This position requires extensive expertise in incident response, digital forensics, threat hunting, and security monitoring technologies. You will provide technical leadership across the organization, mentor team members, and participate in 24x7 on-call rotations. The role reports to the Manager of Security Operations and Response. This role can be performed remotely anywhere in the UK, or from our London, UK office.

The Impact You’ll Have

• Proactively monitor Marqeta's environment for cyber threat activity and manage day-to-day security alerts through timely analysis, triage, and appropriate response actions.
• Serve as the incident commander during security events of all severity levels, directing investigation strategies and coordinating cross-functional response efforts.
• Deliver NIST Incident Response Lifecycle aligned services to prepare for, detect, contain, eradicate, recover, and learn from cybersecurity incidents.
• Work with the CISO to maintain the Cybersecurity Incident Response Plan (CIRP), ensuring alignment with government and law enforcement reporting requirements.
• Document and maintain Security Operations processes, procedures, playbooks, and runbooks to ensure consistent and effective response operations.
• Participate in 24x7x365 on-call rotations, providing expert-level guidance during security incidents and conducting thorough post-incident reviews.
• Proactively research threat intelligence sources to develop and lead hypothesis-driven threat hunting initiatives to uncover threats in corporate and production environments.
• Work closely with Security Engineering to tune security solutions, enhance detection capabilities, and leverage business knowledge to improve security monitoring.
• Design, develop, and maintain detection logic using a detections-as-code approach, collaborating with Security Solution Engineering to deploy detections through CI/CD pipelines into our SIEM and EDR platforms.
• Maintain and expand detection coverage mapped to MITRE ATT&CK framework, identifying gaps in visibility and prioritising detection development based on threat intelligence and business risk.
• Serve as liaison with HR, law enforcement, response retainers, and cyber insurers as required, including coordination on cyber-crime financial fraud use cases.
• Mentor security team members in incident response methodologies while collaborating with senior leadership to communicate security risks and strategic recommendations.
• Partner with Fraud, Compliance, and Risk teams on security events involving payment systems, cardholder data, or regulatory reporting obligations under PCI DSS and related frameworks.

Who You Are

• 8+ years of hands-on experience in security operations with deep expertise in incident response, digital forensics, and threat hunting.
• Demonstrated experience serving as an incident commander, managing response workflows and making decisions under pressure for security events of varying severity.
• Advanced knowledge of the NIST Incident Response Lifecycle and experience developing effective incident response documentation and procedures.
• Expert-level proficiency with security monitoring and forensic tools including EDR, SIEM, and SOAR systems.
• Experience developing and maintaining detections-as-code, including familiarity with version control, CI/CD pipelines, and detection testing frameworks.
• Working knowledge of MITRE ATT&CK and experience using it to assess detection coverage, map threat actor TTPs, and prioritise detection engineering efforts.
• Experience conducting post-incident reviews and implementing security improvements based on lessons learned.
• Strong understanding of threat actor TTPs and ability to apply threat intelligence to enhance detection and response capabilities.
• Experience tuning security solutions and developing automation workflows to improve monitoring effectiveness and response efficiency.
• Advanced knowledge of AWS cloud services and securing cloud environments.
• Ability to effectively communicate with technical and executive stakeholders during security incidents and investigations.
• Experience in payment processing, fintech, or other highly regulated environments; familiarity with PCI DSS incident handling requirements a plus.
• Proven ability to work independently while demonstrating sound judgment about when to engage team members or escalate issues.
• Strong mentorship abilities with a track record of developing junior security professionals in incident response techniques.

About Marqeta

Marqeta is on a mission to change the way money moves. We’re one of the earliest enablers of embedded finance, a market opportunity sized up in the trillions. Our card issuing platform provides unprecedented flexibility and control for companies to issue cards, authorise transactions, and manage payment operations in real time. Marqeta is powering the most well-known brands in the new economy (Block, Cash App, Affirm, Instacart, Doordash, Uber, Walmart, etc). You don’t need to be a Payments expert to join the Marqeta Team, let us help you with that. This is the opportunity of a lifetime to work with innovators around the world and unlock equitable financial access for all.

Equal Employment Opportunity, Accommodations and Privacy

Marqeta is an equal opportunity employer committed to an inclusive workplace that fosters belonging. We do not discriminate based on race, colour, religion, sex (including pregnancy, lactation, childbirth, or related medical conditions), veteran status or uniformed service member status, age, national origin or ancestry, citizenship or immigration status, physical or mental disability, gender identity, gender expression, sexual orientation, genetic information (including testing or characteristics) or any other characteristic protected by applicable law. We also consider qualified applicants with criminal histories, consistent with legal requirements. Marqeta endeavors to make reasonable accommodations for applicants with disabilities. If you are an individual with a disability and require a reasonable accommodation to submit this application, complete any pre-employment testing, or otherwise participate in the employee selection process, please submit this form with your specific accommodation request.