Senior Penetration Tester – Offensive Security

Role Overview We are looking for an experienced Senior Penetration Tester with 5+ years of hands-on experience in offensive security and penetration testing. The individual will work as a hands-on Individual Contributor, independently planning and executing complex assessments across web applications, APIs, networks, cloud environments, Active Directory, and enterprise infrastructure. The role requires strong business understanding: the candidate must understand the customer's business model, critical processes, architecture, data flows, crown-jewel assets, and threat landscape and use that context to design risk-driven penetration tests. The individual will also support the SOC through threat hunting, advanced investigations, incident advisory, attack-path analysis, and technical security guidance. Key Responsibilities 1. Penetration Testing & Security Assessments · Independently plan, scope, execute, document, and close penetration testing engagements from scoping through retesting. · Perform advanced Web Application, API, Network, Mobile, Cloud, Active Directory, and Infrastructure penetration testing. · Conduct authenticated and unauthenticated assessments and validate vulnerabilities through controlled exploitation. · Identify attack chains by combining vulnerabilities, misconfigurations, weak controls, and identity risks. · Develop exploit Proof-of-Concepts (PoCs), validate impact, and provide practical remediation guidance. · Perform manual testing beyond automated scanner results and validate remediation through retesting. 2. Business & Risk-Based Penetration Testing · Understand customer business models, critical workflows, applications, data flows, technology architecture, and critical assets before testing. · Translate business requirements and threat scenarios into an appropriate penetration testing strategy. · Prioritize findings using business criticality, exploitability, exposure, attack path, data sensitivity, and potential operational or financial impact. · Design realistic attack scenarios relevant to the customer's industry and threat landscape. · Translate technical weaknesses into business risk and provide practical recommendations aligned with operational constraints. 3. Advanced Offensive Security · Conduct adversary simulation and advanced penetration testing activities where applicable. · Perform attack-path analysis covering initial access, privilege escalation, credential compromise, lateral movement, persistence, defense evasion, and controlled data-access/exfiltration simulation. · Perform Active Directory security assessments and identify privilege-escalation and identity attack paths. · Conduct cloud attack-path assessments across AWS/Azure environments. · Research emerging vulnerabilities, exploits, TTPs, and offensive security techniques. 4. Web & API Security · Perform comprehensive manual Web and API testing aligned with OWASP Top 10, OWASP API Security Top 10, and OWASP WSTG. · Test authentication, authorization, session management, access controls, business logic, input validation, API security, and sensitive-data exposure. · Assess and exploit vulnerabilities such as IDOR/BOLA, privilege escalation, SSRF, injection, authentication bypass, business-logic flaws, and insecure deserialization. · Perform business-logic testing based on real application functionality and customer workflows. 5. Cloud & Infrastructure Security · Assess AWS/Azure IAM, networking, storage, workloads, secrets, security groups/NSGs, logging, and configuration controls. · Identify attack paths across cloud identities, workloads, storage, and network components. · Perform internal and external network/infrastructure penetration testing and Active Directory/Windows security assessments. 6. SOC Support – Threat Hunting & Advanced Investigations · Work closely with the SOC team to support proactive threat hunting across SIEM, XDR/EDR, network, endpoint, identity, and cloud telemetry. · Develop and execute threat-hunting hypotheses based on emerging threats, MITRE ATT&CK techniques, threat intelligence, observed attacker TTPs, and organizational risk. · Support advanced investigations involving suspicious activity, compromised accounts, malware, lateral movement, privilege escalation, persistence, and potential data compromise. · Correlate penetration-testing findings and attack paths with SOC detections to identify monitoring gaps and improve detection coverage. · Provide technical advisory to SOC analysts during complex investigations and help validate attack techniques through controlled simulations. · Recommend new detection use cases, telemetry requirements, investigation playbooks, and threat-hunting queries based on offensive-security findings. · Participate in incident investigations as a subject-matter expert for exploitation, attacker behavior, and attack-path analysis. · Conduct purple-team style validation where required to verify whether SOC controls can detect and respond to realistic attack techniques. 7. Security Advisory & Consulting · Provide security advisory to application, infrastructure, cloud, DevOps, SOC, and security teams. · Review architecture, security controls, and proposed remediation approaches from an attacker perspective. · Advise on security improvements based on penetration-testing findings, threat intelligence, incident observations, and emerging attack techniques. · Support security design reviews and provide practical recommendations that balance security and business requirements. 8. Automation, Scripting & Exploit Development · Develop scripts and automation to improve penetration-testing and security-investigation efficiency. · Create custom tools, payloads, PoCs, and exploit scripts where required. · Use Python, PowerShell, and Bash for security automation, testing, and investigation support. · Understand exploit code and modify publicly available PoCs safely for authorized assessment activities. 9. Reporting & Client Communication · Prepare high-quality technical and executive-level penetration-testing reports. · Document vulnerability details, evidence, business impact, risk, attack paths, PoCs, and remediation recommendations. · Present findings to technical teams, security leadership, and business stakeholders. · Conduct client walkthroughs, remediation discussions, and vulnerability-closure/retest sessions. 10. Individual Contributor Expectations · Own penetration-testing engagements independently with minimal supervision. · Define methodology, testing approach, effort estimates, dependencies, and timelines. · Handle complex and ambiguous security problems and take ownership of deliverable quality. · Mentor junior testers through technical guidance and knowledge sharing. · Improve internal PT methodologies, checklists, tooling, automation, and reporting standards. · Contribute to security research, labs, offensive-security capability development, and service improvement. Required Technical Skills Web & API Security · Burp Suite Professional · OWASP ZAP · Postman · SQLMap · Nuclei · Manual exploitation and business-logic testing · OWASP WSTG and OWASP API Security Top 10 Network & Infrastructure · Nmap · Nessus / OpenVAS · Metasploit · Netcat · Responder · Impacket · NetExec / CrackMapExec · Hydra · Wireshark Active Directory / Windows · BloodHound / SharpHound · PowerView · Mimikatz · Rubeus · Impacket · Kerberoasting / AS-REP Roasting · NTLM attacks · Pass-the-Hash / Pass-the-Ticket · Privilege escalation and AD attack-path analysis Cloud Security · AWS / Azure security fundamentals · IAM security and cloud privilege escalation · Cloud networking and storage security · Security groups / NSGs · Cloud misconfiguration assessment · Cloud attack-path analysis Red Team / Adversary Simulation · Cobalt Strike or equivalent · Sliver / Metasploit · Command-and-control concepts · Phishing simulation · Credential attacks · Lateral movement · Privilege escalation · Persistence and defense-evasion concepts · MITRE ATT&CK Programming & Scripting · Strong hands-on ability in at least two of Python, PowerShell, Bash, JavaScript, or SQL. · Ability to develop security automation, custom PoCs, payloads, testing scripts, and security utilities. Security Methodologies & Frameworks · OWASP Top 10, OWASP API Security Top 10, OWASP WSTG, MITRE ATT&CK, PTES, NIST security concepts, CVSS, CWE, and common vulnerability assessment methodologies. · Knowledge of PCI DSS, ISO 27001, SOC 2, and other regulatory/security requirements is preferred. Business & Consul