Director, Cybersecurity Operations

KLDiscovery•United States,

11d

About The Position

The Director, Cybersecurity Operations leads Security Operations and Incident Response, Security Engineering, Vulnerability Management, and Threat Intelligence. This is a player-coach leadership role reporting directly to the CISO, partnering with the Director, Cyber GRC as one unified cyber team. The Director will bring hands-on technical depth, strong leadership capability, and the ability to modernize security operations through MDR deployment, AI-informed detection, and a security engineering team organized around functional specialization.

Requirements

15+ years of progressive experience in information security, including at least 7 years in a security leadership role
Demonstrated ownership of a security operations or engineering function at the Director or equivalent level
Experience operating and maturing an MDR deployment (CrowdStrike Falcon Complete, Arctic Wolf, Expel, or equivalent) in a corporate environment
Hands-on background in at least two of the following: security engineering, penetration testing/offensive security, cloud security, application security, or incident response; this is not a purely strategic role
Demonstrated experience deploying or maturing security automation, such as SOAR playbooks, detection engineering, IaC security, or CI/CD pipeline security
Familiarity with cloud-native security (AWS, Azure, or GCP), including CSPM, cloud IAM, and workload protection
Working knowledge of cybersecurity frameworks such as NIST SP 800-171, ISO 27001, and SOC 2
Understanding of the vulnerability management lifecycle: scanning, prioritization, remediation tracking, and SLA enforcement
Familiarity with AppSec disciplines: SAST/DAST tooling, secure SDLC, and security gate integration into CI/CD
Understanding of IAM security governance (PAM, access review programs, and SSO/MFA architecture) as distinct from IT provisioning execution
Foundational awareness of CMMC requirements
An exceptional communicator, able to translate complex cyber risk and compliance concepts into clear business language for executives, clients, and regulators alike
A natural collaborator and client-facing presence, comfortable leading enterprise client security discussions, representing KLDiscovery in due diligence meetings, and building trust with external stakeholders
Business-minded, balancing security requirements against commercial realities and making practical decisions without sacrificing rigor
A continuous learner with genuine curiosity, energized by a fast-growing company and a rapidly evolving regulatory and threat landscape
Discreet and trusted, exercising sound judgment, maintaining confidentiality, and operating with professionalism

Nice To Haves

Experience with AI security considerations (model testing, prompt injection, AI tool access governance, and emerging AI governance frameworks such as the NIST AI RMF and ISO 42001) is a meaningful differentiator
Professional certifications such as CISSP, CISM, CISA, GPEN, GCIA, or other GIAC certifications strongly preferred
Master's degree or MBA with a security focus preferred

Responsibilities

Own the MDR relationship, including SLA management, escalation accountability, detection tuning, and quarterly threat hunt reviews
Lead the incident response function: IR runbooks, major incident coordination, executive communication during active incidents, and post-incident root cause analysis
Oversee SOC detection engineering, ensuring SIEM rules, SOAR playbooks, and automated response actions are maintained, tested, and tuned to the current threat landscape
Direct and develop the security analyst pool, redeploying analyst capacity from frontline triage toward MDR validation, threat hunt support, and stakeholder reporting
Oversee four specialized engineering lanes [endpoint, identity, cloud, and application security], ensuring each lane has clear ownership, defined scope, and measurable outcomes
Drive security architecture reviews and engineering decisions for large or complex IT projects, ensuring security requirements are built in rather than bolted on
Shape the security tooling stack strategy, evaluating, selecting, and retiring tools across endpoint, identity, cloud, and application security
Enforce automation-first engineering practices, including IaC security gates, CI/CD pipeline security, CSPM auto-remediation, and SOAR-driven response workflows
Lead the operationalization of threat intelligence, translating MDR findings and external threat data into detection rule updates, architecture decisions, and risk register inputs for the GRC team
Own the vulnerability management lifecycle: scanning coverage, risk-based prioritization, remediation tracking, and SLA enforcement
Own the purple team and control validation program, confirming that deployed controls operate as intended and that detection capabilities fire correctly against known attack techniques
Drive threat modeling across the engineering function, identifying attack paths before they are exploited and feeding findings into remediation prioritization
Oversee the AppSec function: secure SDLC, code review gates, SAST/DAST tooling, and security collaboration with the Product and Engineering teams
Own cloud security posture management: CSPM, cloud workload protection, cloud IAM governance, and cloud-native security architecture
Set the team-wide AI security posture, overseeing AI security controls across all engineering lanes, including model security, prompt injection testing, and AI tool access governance in partnership with cyber leadership
Lead the ongoing maturation of the MDR deployment, expanding coverage, improving response fidelity, and integrating MDR outputs with internal SIEM, IAM, and compliance evidence workflows
Champion security automation across the team, reducing manual toil in detection, response, vulnerability tracking, and reporting through SOAR, scripting, and platform integrations
Evaluate emerging security technologies and make build/buy/partner recommendations to the CISO with clear business and risk rationale
Lead, develop, and performance-manage a lean engineering team
Partner with the Director, Cyber GRC as one unified cyber function, feeding operational threat intelligence into the risk register, supporting compliance evidence for technical controls, and jointly presenting security posture
Provide regular metrics and reporting to the CISO on incident trends, control coverage, MDR performance, vulnerability posture, and team development
Build a team culture of continuous improvement, automation-first execution, and proactive security, where threat hunting and control validation are protected activities rather than aspirational ones