Boolean search string for Security Engineer
Copy-paste strings to source Security Engineer candidates, plus the title synonyms, skills and exclusions they are built from. Adapt the terms to your market before running them.
LinkedIn search
("security engineer" OR "application security engineer" OR "information security engineer" OR "cloud security engineer" OR "security analyst" OR "infosec engineer") AND "security engineering" AND "vulnerability management" AND "incident response" AND ("threat modeling" OR "penetration testing" OR siem OR iam OR owasp OR "cloud security" OR encryption OR "network security" OR "security architecture" OR devsecops OR "red team" OR "blue team" OR "soc 2" OR "zero trust") NOT (intern OR student OR "physical security guard" OR "staffing agency")Paste into the LinkedIn people-search box. LinkedIn supports AND, OR, NOT and quoted phrases.
Google X-ray
site:linkedin.com/in ("security engineer" OR "application security engineer" OR "information security engineer" OR "cloud security engineer" OR "security analyst" OR "infosec engineer") "security engineering" "vulnerability management" "incident response" ("threat modeling" OR "penetration testing" OR siem OR iam OR owasp OR "cloud security" OR encryption OR "network security" OR "security architecture" OR devsecops OR "red team" OR "blue team" OR "soc 2" OR "zero trust") -intern -student -"physical security guard" -"staffing agency"Paste into Google. It searches public LinkedIn profiles without LinkedIn Recruiter — add a location in quotes to narrow it.
Terms behind the Security Engineer string
| Job titles | security engineer · application security engineer · information security engineer · cloud security engineer · security analyst · infosec engineer |
|---|---|
| Core skills | security engineering · vulnerability management · incident response · threat modeling · penetration testing · siem · iam · owasp · cloud security · encryption · network security · security architecture |
| Nice to have | devsecops · red team · blue team · soc 2 · zero trust |
| Excluded | intern · student · physical security guard · staffing agency |
Sourcing notes
- Start broad, then narrow. If a string returns under ~20 profiles, drop the nice-to-have group before you drop titles.
- Exclusions cut noise but also cut real candidates — check a few excluded profiles before trusting a NOT clause.
- Titles vary by company size: what reads as senior at a startup can be mid-level at an enterprise. Read the profile, not the label.
Build a custom Boolean string → · Interview scorecard for a Security Engineer →
Frequently asked questions
What should a security engineer interview scorecard include?
Weighted competencies that separate practitioners from readers: threat modeling against a real system, vulnerability triage and remediation follow-through, incident detection and response, secure design review, identity and access control, and detection tuning. Weight triage and threat modeling highest — reporting findings is easy, getting them fixed is the job. Anchors keep certification-heavy resumes from scoring on credentials alone.
How do you test security skills without a lab exercise?
Ask for the judgment calls. A finding they downgraded and why, an incident timeline with the moment they chose to contain, a design review where engineering pushed back and what shipped instead. These require having owned decisions under pressure, and they do not have a memorizable answer the way a tool question does.
How much should certifications weigh when hiring a security engineer?
Treat them as evidence of study, not of judgment. A certification shows familiarity with a body of knowledge; it says nothing about whether someone can prioritize a backlog or run an incident. Use them as a tie-break at the screening stage, then score the interview on the same competencies with the evidence cited next to each rating.
When the stakes are a real hire, use evidence
These tools are quick heuristics. Verdict reads the CV against your job description and scores six dimensions with verbatim quotes as evidence — a hiring document you can defend.