At a Glance
About This Role
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About the Role
Qualys is seeking aSeniorVulnerabilityAnalystto join the Product Security Incident Response Team (PSIRT) as a hands-on technical practitioner. Reporting to the LeadVulnerabilityAnalyst, you will execute the day-to-day work ofvulnerabilitydiscovery, triage, analysis, and remediation tracking across a product portfolio of more than 35 products. Where the Lead owns program-level strategy, cross-functional accountability, and executive communications, this role is responsible for the depth and rigor of the technical analysis that underpins every PSIRT decision.
This is an individual contributor role for a mid-career security professional who thrives in the details: reviewing source code to assess exploitability, writing precise advisories, building detection logic, and driving engineering teams toward timely remediation. You will work across the fullvulnerabilitylifecycle, from initial intake through coordinated disclosure, and contribute directly to the tools, automation, and processes that make the PSIRT function scale.
Key Responsibilities
Vulnerability Analysis & Triage
- Perform deep technical analysis of reported vulnerabilities, including root-cause investigation, exploitability assessment, CVSS and SSVC scoring, and impact determination across affected products.
- Triage incomingvulnerabilityreports from internal scanners, SCA tooling, external researchers, and coordinated disclosure channels, ensuring accurate classification and priority assignment.
- Analyze source code in C/C++, Java, and web application frameworks to validatevulnerabilityfindings and assess the effectiveness of proposed fixes.
- Support major incident response efforts led by the LeadVulnerabilityAnalyst, providing technical depth during war-room triage of high-severity and zero-day vulnerabilities.
Detection, Monitoring & Threat Hunting
- Build and maintain alerting rules and detection automation to identify known and emerging vulnerabilities in production products and services.
- Continuously hunt for CVEs and CWEs affecting Qualys components, third-party dependencies, and container base images; document findings with reproducible analysis.
- Monitor publicvulnerabilitydatabases, threat intelligence feeds, and researcher disclosures to proactively identify exposure across the product portfolio.
- Investigatevulnerabilitytrends and systemic weakness patterns; surface findings to the LeadVulnerabilityAnalystto inform program-level priorities.
- Coordinate with counterparts in Security Operations, including CERT
Remediation Tracking & SLA Compliance
- Track engineering remediation efforts against defined patching SLAs, maintaining accurate status records for every openvulnerabilityacross product teams.
- Coordinate the determination of Affected Status for vulnerabilities and their corresponding fix timelines, working directly with product engineering owners.
- Review security exception requests, documenting technical justifications, compensating controls, and residual risk for Lead review and approval.
- Prepare SLA conformance reports and delinquency summaries for leadership review.
Advisory Authoring & Coordinated Disclosure
- Draft customer-facing Product Security Advisories (PSAs), ensuring technical accuracy, completeness, and consistency with PSIRT editorial standards.
- Coordinate with security testing teams to validate compensating controls, verify fix effectiveness, and confirm exploitability status prior to advisory publication.
- Support the CoordinatedVulnerabilityDisclosure (CVD) process by managing researcher communications, tracking disclosure timelines, and preparing disclosure packages under the direction of the Lead.
Toolchain & Process Improvement
- Develop and enhance PSIRT tooling, including SCA and SAST integration workflows, SBOM analysis pipelines, container security, andvulnerabilitydata lake ingestion.
- Maintain and improve PSIRT runbooks, triage playbooks, and standard operating procedures based on lessons learned and evolving threat landscape.
- Build and refine dashboards and reporting artifacts that surfacevulnerabilityposture, remediation velocity, and trend data for leadership and audit consumption.
Required Qualifications
- 5+ years of experience invulnerabilityanalysis, product security, application security, or security engineering.
- 2+ years of experience operating within a PSIRT, CERT, or comparablevulnerabilitycoordination function.
- Strong written and verbale communication skills and attention to detail in technical documentation.
- Strong technical skills invulnerabilityanalysis, including root-cause investigation, exploitability assessment, and CVSS/SSVC scoring.
- Demonstrated proficiency in operating system security (Linux), container security, and web application security.
- Working knowledge of C/C++, Java, and SaaS platform architectures sufficient to perform code-levelvulnerabilityassessment.
- Hands-on experience with CVE/CWE analysis workflows,vulnerabilitydatabases, and threat intelligence sources.
- Experience drafting security advisories or technicalvulnerabilitywrite-ups for external audiences.
Preferred Qualifications
- Experience with offensive security techniques, penetration testing, or red team operations.
- Familiarity withvulnerabilityhanding standards and best practices.
- Hands-on experience with SCA tools (e.g., Black Duck, Snyk, Trivy), SAST platforms, and SBOM tooling (SPDX, CycloneDX).
- Familiarity with NIST SSDF, CoordinatedVulnerabilityDisclosure frameworks, and product security lifecycle models.
- Experience building detection rules, alerting logic, or security automation in scripting languages such as Python or Go.
- Exposure to data lake architectures, security telemetry pipelines, orvulnerabilityanalytics platforms.
- Active participation in the security community through CTFs, research publications, conference presentations, or open-source contributions.
- Relevant certifications such as OSCP, GPEN, GWAPT, CSSLP, or equivalent.
How This Role Relates to the Lead
The LeadVulnerabilityAnalystowns PSIRT program strategy, cross-functional escalation authority, executive reporting, and external disclosure relationships. TheSeniorVulnerabilityAnalystprovides the technical execution layer: performing the detailed analysis, writing the initial advisory drafts, building the detection and tracking infrastructure, and ensuring everyvulnerabilityhas a complete, auditable record from intake through closure. Together, the two roles form the analytical core of the PSIRT function.
Why Qualys
- Join a PSIRT function that is purpose-built to operate at the intersection of engineering accountability and security excellence.
- Work with a product portfolio that protects critical infrastructure across enterprise and government environments worldwide.
- Shape thevulnerabilitymanagement practices of a company whose core mission is security.
- Collaborate with a leadership team that values operational rigor, transparency, and continuous improvement.
Source: Qualys careers · View original posting
About Qualys
Qualys, Inc. is an American technology company based in Foster City, California, specializing in cloud-based security and compliance solutions. Founded in 1999, Qualys is recognized as a pioneer in software-as-a-service (SaaS) security, launching its flagship product, QualysGuard, in 2000. The company provides a unified cloud platform that delivers continuous security and compliance intelligence across various IT environments, including on-premises, cloud, and mobile devices. Qualys offers a comprehensive suite of services through its Qualys Cloud Platform, which includes Vulnerability Management, Asset Discovery, Cloud and Container Security, Web Application Security, Compliance Management, and more. The company serves over 10,000 subscription customers globally, including many from the Forbes Global 50, 500, and 2000. With strategic partnerships with major cloud providers and consulting firms, Qualys is positioned as a leading provider in unified cloud security and compliance, helping organizations protect their digital assets and meet regulatory requirements.
Security at Qualys
Compiled from public job postings, careers pages, and company materials. Data may not reflect current state — verify during interviews.
Security Philosophy
- Qualys' AppSec philosophy emphasizes embedding security early and continuously in the development lifecycle, fostering DevSecOps collaboration, and automating remediation without slowing down development.
- They focus on risk-based prioritization, using TruRisk™ to quantify impact based on exploit likelihood, data sensitivity, and asset value.
- Goals include simplifying remediation and bridging the gap between development and security through no-code automation.
Security Team
Information regarding Qualys' AppSec team organizational structure, reporting lines, team size estimates, and common skill/tool patterns from active job postings is not publicly available. However, a job posting indicates a "Vice President, Product Management – CNAPP, AppSec and AI Security"role, suggesting leadership in these areas.
Key Initiatives
- Qualys' AppSec initiatives include a strong focus on "Shift Left"practices, embedding security early and continuously through native integrations with CI/CD pipelines like GitHub Actions, Azure DevOps, and Jenkins.
- Their vulnerability management process involves auto-discovery of APIs and web applications, simplifying remediation with risk-based prioritization, and automating ticket creation in ServiceNow and Jira.
- A significant recent initiative is the upcoming Qualys TotalAppSec, expected in Q1 2025, which will integrate API security, web application scanning, and AI-driven malware detection.
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