Description
ActiveFence is seeking an experienced Malware Research Director to build and manage multiple teams dedicated to malware research and review. This role presents an exciting opportunity to establish a new operation from the ground up, including recruiting top talent, creating processes, and setting up cross-team collaboration while serving as the primary client interface.
The position is primarily leadership and client-facing, requiring exceptional team-building and operational setup skills. The ideal candidate demonstrates proven experience in building teams from scratch, establishing new operations, and strong client relationship management capabilities.
Key Responsibilities:
Build and recruit multiple teams of malware researchers from scratch
Establish operational processes, workflows, and quality standards for the new teams
Coordinate with other departments to integrate the new operation into the existing infrastructure
Serve as primary client interface, managing relationships and ensuring client satisfaction
Present research findings and malicious evidence to clients and stakeholders
Create training programs and onboarding processes for new team members
Develop performance metrics and evaluation frameworks for team effectiveness
Lead client meetings, requirement discussions, and project planning sessions
Collaborate with sales and business development teams on client engagements
Requirements
Must-Have:
Management experience - managing at least 10 employees for a minimum of 5 years, with extensive experience in recruiting and building teams
Proven track record of setting up new teams or operations from the ground up
Strong client-facing experience with excellent presentation and communication skills
At least 3 years of proven experience in one of the following: malware research, reverse engineering, penetration testing, software development
Understanding of malware research principles and the cybersecurity landscape
Experience managing client relationships and delivering technical solutions to business stakeholders
Nice-to-Have:
Experience establishing new departments or research operations within organizations
Background in scaling teams from startup or greenfield environments
Background in technical sales or business development in cybersecurity
Experience presenting to C-level executives and technical stakeholders
Experience with decompilers, debuggers, and disassemblers (e.g., JADX, JEB, LLDB, GDB, x86dbg, Ghidra, IDA Pro)
Familiarity with instrumentation frameworks like Frida or Xposed
Proficiency with HTTP debuggers, MITM tools, and network analyzers (e.g., Fiddler, HTTP Toolkit, Burp Suite, Wireshark, Little Snitch, mitmproxy)
Understanding of network communications and protocols
Familiarity with multiple programming languages (Java, C/C++, JavaScript, Python)
About ActiveFence
ActiveFence is the leading tool stack for Trust & Safety teams, worldwide. By relying on ActiveFence’s end-to-end solution, Trust & Safety teams—of all sizes—can keep users safe from the widest spectrum of online harms, unwanted content, and malicious behavior, including child safety, disinformation, fraud, hate speech, terror, nudity, and more.
Using cutting-edge AI and a team of world-class subject-matter experts to continuously collect, analyze, and contextualize data, ActiveFence ensures that in an ever-changing world, customers are always two steps ahead of bad actors. As a result, Trust & Safety teams can be proactive and provide maximum protection to users across a multitude of abuse areas, in 70+ languages.
Backed by leading Silicon Valley investors such as CRV and Norwest, ActiveFence has raised $100M to date; employs 300 people worldwide, and has contributed to the online safety of billions of users across the globe.