Principal Security Engineer, Incident Response

Job Description

Workday Job Profile: Principal Security Engineer

Business/Posting Title: Principal Security Engineer, Incident Response

Grade: 11

Job Summary:

The Principal Security Engineer, Incident Response is a senior technical cybersecurity role responsible for leading the investigation, containment, eradication, and recovery of security incidents across Advance Auto Parts' enterprise environment.

Reporting to the Sr. Manager, Cybersecurity Incident Response, this role serves as a technical lead and escalation point within the Incident Response (IR) program. The role is responsible for ensuring incidents are rapidly triaged, thoroughly investigated, and fully remediate while minimizing risk to business operations, customers, team members, and company reputation.

The Senior Incident Responder will partner across Cybersecurity, Technology, Legal, Privacy, Risk Management, Store Operations, and Supply Chain Operations to resolve complex security events and strengthen enterprise resilience against modern threats, including ransomware, identity-based attacks, cloud compromises, insider threats, and third-party breaches.

What will you do?

Incident Response & Investigations

• Lead technical response to high-severity cybersecurity incidents from detection through closure.
• Serve as technical lead and deputy to the Incident Commander during major cybersecurity events.
• Investigate and respond to ransomware, malware outbreaks, business email compromise, credential theft, cloud compromise, insider threats, and third-party breaches.
• Perform host, network, memory, log, and cloud forensic analysis to determine root cause, scope, and impact.
• Execute containment, eradication, and recovery actions in coordination with Technology and business teams.
• Preserve evidence and maintain chain of custody in support of legal, regulatory, privacy, and cyber insurance requirements.
• Serve as the escalation point for junior incident responders on complex or ambiguous security events.
• Produce clear, timely incident documentation, technical findings, and status updates for leadership.

Threat Hunting & Detection

• Conduct proactive, hypothesis-driven threat hunts to identify advanced attacker activity.
• Translate incident findings into new or improved detections aligned to MITRE ATT&CK.
• Partner with Engineering teams to tune monitoring technologies and improve signal-to-noise ratios.
• Leverage threat intelligence to enrich investigations and anticipate threat actor TTPs targeting the retail industry.
• Identify opportunities to automate triage, enrichment, and response actions.

Cyber Preparedness & Resilience

• Develop, maintain, and test incident response playbooks so they remain current and actionable.
• Support tabletop exercises, ransomware preparedness exercises, and cyber crisis simulations.
• Lead post-incident reviews and track corrective actions through completion.
• Contribute incident data to operational metrics, including Mean Time to Detect (MTTD) and Mean Time to Respond (MTTR).

Collaboration & Mentorship

• Mentor and develop junior incident responders through case reviews and hands-on coaching.
• Share knowledge through runbooks, training sessions, and lessons learned.
• Coordinate with external IR retainers, forensic vendors, and law enforcement as directed.
• Model a culture of accountability, resilience, and continuous improvement.

Location & Work Availability:

This position is Hybrid (4 days in office, 1 day remote), based at our corporate headquarters in Raleigh, North Carolina.

Qualifications:

• 6+ years of experience in cybersecurity, with at least 3 years focused on incident response, digital forensics, or threat hunting.
• Proven experience leading investigations of ransomware, business email compromise, cloud, and identity-based attacks.
• Hands-on expertise with security technologies (SIEM, SOAR, EDR, cloud security tools, network and forensic analysis tools).
• Working knowledge of Windows, Linux, Active Directory/Entra ID, and major cloud platforms (AWS, Azure, or GCP).
• Experience with cybersecurity frameworks (NIST SP 800-61, NIST CSF, MITRE ATT&CK).
• Scripting ability (Python, PowerShell, or similar) to support investigations and automation.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills, including the ability to explain technical findings to non-technical audiences.

Preferred Qualifications

• Certifications: GCIH, GCFA, GCFE, GNFA, GREM, CISSP
• Experience in large-scale, complex organizations, retail, or highly regulated industries.
• Expertise in cybersecurity automation and analytics.

Certifications, Experience, and Education:

• Certifications: GCIH, GCFA, GCFE, GNFA, GREM, CISSP

Benefits Summary:

We believe in supporting our Team Members and those they love through comprehensive health & wellness benefits. Learn more here: https://jobs.advanceautoparts.com/us/en/benefits

Company Overview:

Advance Auto Parts, Inc. is a leading automotive aftermarket parts provider that serves both professional installer and do-it-yourself customers. As of January 3, 2026, Advance operated 4,305 stores primarily within the United States, with additional locations in Canada, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands. The Company also served 809 independently owned Carquest branded stores across these locations in addition to Mexico and various Caribbean islands. Additional information about Advance, including employment opportunities, customer services, and online shopping for parts, accessories and other offerings can be found at www.AdvanceAutoParts.com.

We are an Equal Opportunity Employer and do not discriminate against any employee or applicant for employment because of race, color, sex, age national origin, religion, sexual orientation, gender identity, status as a veteran and basis of disability or any other federal, state, or local protected class.

We are an Equal Opportunity Employer and do not discriminate against any employee or applicant for employment because of race, color, sex, age national origin, religion, sexual orientation, gender identity, status as a veteran and basis of disability or any other federal, state or local protected class. We comply with all applicable federal, state, and local laws.

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