Principal Dark Web Collection Analyst

Role Overview:

Recorded Future is expanding its dark web collection capability with a focus on underground community intelligence: criminal forums, illicit marketplaces, and covert messaging channels where threat actors recruit, collaborate, and transact.

You will be Recorded Future's internal authority on the dark web ecosystem, the person other teams turn to when they need to understand how underground communities operate, what's worth collecting, and where not to invest. This means making real strategic decisions: which forums warrant access efforts, which intelligence areas to prioritize, and which sources don't merit the operational cost. You will own that judgment and defend it across the organization.

At the same time, this is a hands-on role. You will personally navigate underground infrastructure, build and maintain access, create and manage personas, and extract intelligence directly. The expert and the operator are the same person here.

What You'll Do:

• Serve as the company-wide subject matter expert on dark web and underground community dynamics, advising product, engineering, sales, and analyst teams
• Make and own strategic collection decisions: which forums, markets, and channels to pursue; which intelligence areas to prioritize; and where to explicitly not invest resources
• Identify, evaluate, and gain access to criminal forums, darknet marketplaces, Telegram channels, and adjacent covert infrastructure within legal and policy boundaries
• Develop and maintain collection strategies, personas, and source documentation to sustain access across a volatile source landscape
• Partner with engineering to translate research tradecraft into automated collection pipelines
• Monitor sources for operational changes such as takedowns, migrations, and rebrands, and continuously adapt
• Produce finished intelligence on key threat actors, community dynamics, and emerging underground infrastructure: actor profiles, source assessments, and analytical summaries
• Collaborate broadly across internal teams (product, PMM, sales, customer success, and research) as the go-to voice on underground community intelligence
• Represent Recorded Future externally by writing customer-facing blogs, presenting at webinars, and contributing to public research on dark web tactics and trends

What You'll Bring:

• 5+ years of hands-on dark web threat research with demonstrable collection outcomes across forums, marketplaces, or covert channels
• Deep, current expertise in the structure and dynamics of major criminal forums and darknet markets, including how they operate, how access is governed, and how actors and communities evolve
• Proven ability to operate within closed or invite-only communities while maintaining OPSEC and legal compliance
• Russian language proficiency at a professional working level, essential for this role
• Strong analytical writing skills, with the ability to produce concise, well-sourced intelligence products for both technical and executive audiences
• Comfort operating externally: presenting to customers, hosting webinars, and writing public-facing content with authority

Preferred Qualifications:

• Additional language skills relevant to underground communities (Ukrainian, Romanian, Chinese, Portuguese, Arabic)
• Background in cybercrime research, threat actor tracking, or law enforcement intelligence
• Prior experience at a threat intelligence vendor, CSIRT, law enforcement, or intelligence agency
• Basic scripting ability (Python) for data parsing and format conversion

Compensation and Benefits:

The base salary range for this full-time position is $152,000 - $228,500. Salary ranges are determined by role, level, and location. The salary displayed reflects the range for new hire salaries for the position across all US locations. Within the range, individual pay is determined by state, work location and additional factors, including job-related skills, experience, and relevant education or training. This position may be eligible for incentive compensation, equity, and medical, dental, vision, life insurance and 401K. Your recruiter can share more about the specific details of the compensation and benefit package during the hiring process.