Principal Security Researcher & Community Advocate

Who this is for

You're a strong technical security practitioner - offensive security, threat research, detection engineering, endpoint / EDR, incident response, or similar - and you increasingly find yourself the one explaining the hard stuff: writing it up, giving the talk, answering in the community, mentoring. You want a role where that becomes the job. This is a deliberate career move from doing the technical work to being a respected technical voice in the community - with the runway and support to grow into it. The common thread: you actually do the work, and the voice is your own - this is a role for someone with real depth to share, not someone who repackages other people's (or an LLM's) takes.

The role in one line

Be Bitdefender's credible technical voice for technical audiences - through deep, honest content and genuine community engagement - and the technical anchor of a team that ships to security practitioners.

Why this role exists

BSG's work is research-led and prevention-first, and it's aimed at technical people who can smell marketing from a mile away. We want someone who lives in that world: who can produce content practitioners actually respect, and who is (or wants to become) a real, trusted member of the communities where those practitioners gather. You'll work directly with the researchers at Bitdefender Labs and have access to our global threat telemetry - using that vantage point to spot emerging threats, techniques, and trends early and translate them into education the wider technical community can act on.

What you'll do

• Original, deep technical content. Produce genuinely technical material for technical audiences - hands-on deep dives, threat and defense analysis, explainers, the occasional talk or workshop. Your own analysis and work, not recycled takes; substance over polish, evidence over adjectives.
• Community engagement. Be present and useful in the security communities that matter - hacker cons, user groups, CTF scenes, meetups, online spaces (BSides and the wider EU/UK con and user-group circuit, local hacker groups). Not as a booth, but as a member: contributing, answering, connecting, learning. Help our own community efforts grow over time.
• Work with Bitdefender Labs, and turn early signal into education. Partner with our threat researchers and draw on Bitdefender's global telemetry to spot new threats, techniques, and trends before they're widely understood - then translate them into clear, timely education for the technical community.
• Bring the field back in. Surface what practitioners actually care about and are struggling with, so our technical content stays relevant and grounded.
• Grow the craft (and yourself). Build your public technical voice - with room to develop the speaking, writing, and community-building muscles if you're earlier on that path.

What you bring (required)

• Deep, hands-on technical security background - practitioner-level in one or more of: offensive security / red teaming, threat research, detection engineering, endpoint security / EDR / XDR, incident response. You've done the work, not just talked about it. This is the non-negotiable.
• A real pull toward sharing and community - you already write, speak, contribute, mentor, or hang out where practitioners do, even if it isn't your full-time job yet.
• Excellent technical communication - you write and explain the way practitioners want to read and hear it, and you instinctively avoid hype ("industry-leading", "best-in-class") in favour of specifics.
• Roots or genuine ties in security communities - user groups, cons, meetups - or a credible, already-started path toward them.
• UK or EU based.
• Self-directed - this is a Principal IC role; you'll own your patch and set your own bar.

Bonus points

• A public body of technical work - published research, talks, open-source, tooling, CTF results, advisories.
• An existing network on the EU/UK con and user-group circuit.
• Comfort with scripting / tooling (e.g. Python) to build or automate your own technical work.
• Multilingual across key EU markets.

What success looks like (first 6–12 months)

• A credible, growing technical presence - content practitioners share, and communities where you're a known and trusted member.
• The team's external technical substance is measurably sounder because you're in the loop.
• The beginnings of a community program with your fingerprints on it.