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Principal Security Engineer Jobs in California (NOW HIRING)

Roblox

Principal Enterprise Security Engineer

San Mateo, CA · On-site

$293K - $343K/yr

As a Principal Enterprise Security Engineer, you will advance Roblox's Enterprise Security strategy by shaping and evolving security architecture in alignment with business objectives. You will lead ...

Fortinet

Principal AI Security Engineer

Sunnyvale, CA · On-site

Fortinet is seeking an experienced and innovative Principal AI Security Engineer to join our Corporate Information Security team. As an AI Security Engineer, you will play a crucial role in ensuring ...

Fortinet

Principal AI Security Engineer

Sunnyvale, CA · On-site

Fortinet is seeking an experienced and innovative Principal AI Security Engineer to join our Corporate Information Security team. As an AI Security Engineer, you will play a crucial role in ensuring ...

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Showing results 21-40

All JobsPrincipal Security Engineer JobsPrincipal Security Engineer Jobs in California

Principal Security Engineer information

See California salary details

$73K

$145.3K

$209.7K

How much do principal security engineer jobs pay per year?

As of Aug 11, 2026, the average yearly pay for principal security engineer in California is $145,292.00, according to ZipRecruiter salary data. Most workers in this role earn between $116,900.00 and $170,700.00 per year, depending on experience, location, and employer.

What are some common challenges faced by principal security engineers in aligning security initiatives with business objectives?

Principal Security Engineers often encounter the challenge of balancing robust security measures with the need for business agility and growth. They must effectively communicate technical risks to non-technical stakeholders and advocate for security investments without hindering innovation or productivity. This role requires a proactive approach to integrating security early in the development lifecycle, collaborating closely with product, engineering, and executive teams to ensure that security strategies support overall business goals while mitigating threats.

What is a principal security engineer?

Principal Security Engineers are senior-level professionals responsible for overseeing the security architecture and strategy of an organization’s information systems. They lead the design, implementation, and maintenance of security protocols, ensuring compliance with industry standards and protecting against cyber threats. These engineers often mentor junior staff, conduct risk assessments, and collaborate with other departments to align security measures with business goals. Their expertise is critical for safeguarding sensitive data and ensuring the overall cybersecurity posture of the organization.

What is the difference between Principal Security Engineer vs Security Architect?

AspectPrincipal Security EngineerSecurity Architect
Required CredentialsCertifications like CISSP, CISM, CEH; Bachelor's or Master's in Cybersecurity or related fieldsSimilar certifications; often holds CISSP, SABSA, or TOGAF; background in security design
Work EnvironmentHands-on security implementation, incident response, vulnerability assessmentsDesigning security frameworks, creating security architecture, strategic planning
Employer & Industry UsageUsed across tech, finance, healthcare; focuses on security operationsCommon in large enterprises, consulting firms; focuses on security design
Search & Comparison IntentUnderstanding roles, responsibilities, career pathsDesigning security solutions, architecture planning

While both roles require strong cybersecurity credentials and involve security strategies, the Principal Security Engineer is more hands-on with security operations and incident response. In contrast, the Security Architect focuses on designing security frameworks and architecture to protect organizational assets.

What are the key skills and qualifications needed to thrive as a principal security engineer?

To excel as a Principal Security Engineer, you need deep expertise in cybersecurity principles, risk management, and network/system architecture, often backed by a degree in computer science or a related field and extensive industry experience. Familiarity with tools such as SIEM platforms, vulnerability scanners, incident response systems, and certifications like CISSP or OSCP is typically required. Exceptional problem-solving, leadership, and communication skills set individuals apart in this role. These skills ensure robust security strategies, effective team guidance, and the ability to address complex threats in dynamic enterprise environments.
What are popular job titles related to Principal Security Engineer jobs in California? For Principal Security Engineer jobs in California, the most frequently searched job titles are:
What job categories do people searching Principal Security Engineer jobs in California look for? The top searched job categories for Principal Security Engineer jobs in California are:
What cities in California are hiring for Principal Security Engineer jobs? Cities in California with the most Principal Security Engineer job openings:
Principal Security Engineer jobs near you
Infographic showing various Principal Security Engineer job openings in California as of August 2026, with employment types broken down into 83% Full Time, 13% Part Time, 2% Temporary, and 2% Contract. Highlights an 92% Physical, 3% Hybrid, and 5% Remote job distribution, with an average salary of $145,292 per year, or $69.9 per hour.

Principal Detection and Response Engineer

Roblox

San Mateo, CA • On-site

$295K - $345K/yr

Full-time

Re-posted 8 days ago

Job description

Every day, tens of millions of people come to Roblox to explore, create, play, learn, and connect with friends in 3D immersive digital experiences- all created by our global community of developers and creators.
At Roblox, we're building the tools and platform that empower our community to bring any experience that they can imagine to life. Our vision is to reimagine the way people come together, from anywhere in the world, and on any device.We're on a mission to connect a billion people with optimism and civility, and looking for amazing talent to help us get there.
A career at Roblox means you'll be working to shape the future of human interaction, solving unique technical challenges at scale, and helping to create safer, more civil shared experiences for everyone.
About the role:
As a Principal Security Engineer on the Detection and Response (D&R) team at Roblox, you'll play a key role designing and developing effective custom security data pipeline systems, detection strategies and automations for response workflows to defend our critical assets from threat actors. You will also lead real-time incident response, actively investigate events and analyze threat actor techniques to prioritize emerging threats to ensure Roblox is equipped to mitigate and react to critical challenges. You will play a vital part to ensure the safety of our community and enterprise by proactively fostering a high-performing, inclusive security culture. This is a hybrid in-office role.
You Will:
  • Be a D&R authority! You will deliver robust detection & response capabilities: build new threat detection systems (keeping false positives low) while also automating processes with scripts, playbooks and orchestration tooling.
  • Implement ETL pipelines: Design and develop customized data processing pipelines.
  • Conduct security operations: Actively monitor security events and participate in on-call rotations to lead real-time incident response to contain and mitigate potential security issues.
  • Build positive relationships: Collaborate with internal teams like InfoSec, Engineering, Product and Safety to design scalable solutions.
  • Help grow the D&R team: Guide and support junior engineer careers and contribute to hiring.

You Have:
  • 8+ years of experience in Detection and/or Response: with a passion for security engineering, threat detection, threat hunting, and incident management.
  • 4+ years of Security Data Engineering experience with streaming pipelines: You've built production grade ETL data processing pipelines end to end using Kafka / PubSub, Spark / Flink, Athena / BigQuery or similar.
  • Software Development (SWE): Mastery building efficient, reliable, CI/CD deployed, scalable systems using programming languages like C, Golang or Java.
  • Engineering experience with SIEM, EDR, NDR, and SOAR technologies: You have on-boarded logs in your sleep and built custom detections/automations for complex environments.
  • Conducted incident response: Structured, mature incident response processes are your vocabulary to swiftly resolve security incidents. Afterwards, you use evidence and data to tell the story and ensure action items are meticulous and complete.
  • Familiarity across multiple domains: Deep understanding of network protocols, operating systems, cloud environments, virtualized hosts, containers, in order to identify potential threats to each.
  • Core security skills: Analytical thinking, crisis management, root cause analysis, and problem-solving, with a meticulous approach to identifying, investigating, and responding to incidents.

For roles that are based at our headquarters in San Mateo, CA: The starting base pay for this position is as shown below. The actual base pay is dependent upon a variety of job-related factors such as professional background, training, work experience, location, business needs and market demand. Therefore, in some circumstances, the actual salary could fall outside of this expected range. This pay range is subject to change and may be modified in the future. All full-time employees are also eligible for equity compensation and for benefits as described on this page.
Annual Salary Range
$295,250-$345,040 USD
Roles that are based in an office are onsite Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, with optional presence on Monday and Friday (unless otherwise noted).
Roblox provides equal employment opportunities to all employees and applicants for employment and prohibits discrimination and harassment of any type without regard to race, color, religion, age, sex, national origin, disability status, genetics, protected veteran status, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, or any other characteristic protected by federal, state or local laws. Roblox also provides reasonable accommodations to candidates with qualifying disabilities or religious beliefs during the recruiting process.
For US based roles only, please note the Company may not be able to employ candidates for this role who have United States work authorization related to certain U.S. visa categories, or support future H-1B sponsorship at this time.

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