Head of Detection and Response

Atlassian • Sydney,

8h • $244,269 - $384,225

About The Position

The Head of Detection & Response (DnR) is a senior security engineering leader accountable for Atlassian’s global incident detection, response, threat intelligence, and security operations programs. The role drives strategy, execution, and measurable outcomes across cloud-first environments, enabling Atlassian to prevent, detect, and respond to threats at scale while building customer trust.

The position leads a multi-layer organization across time zones and owns the global detection and response strategy, roadmap, and investment plan. It establishes governance and outcome visibility through OKRs, SLOs, and dashboards, and oversees cloud-native detection engineering, incident response operations, threat intelligence, threat hunting, and security data and AI enablement.

The role partners with Trust Engineering, Product Security, Corporate Security, Governance/Risk, and Security Assessments. It also represents DnR in executive forums, customer escalations, and external audits. Atlassians may work from an office, home, or a combination of the two, and Atlassian can hire in any country where it has a legal entity.

Requirements

• 15+ years of experience in security.
• 7+ years leading multi-region detection/response or SOC/IR organizations at large-scale cloud-first companies.
• Proven success running high-severity incidents end to end, including executive and customer communications and regulatory readiness.
• Depth in cloud platforms, identity, modern endpoint/EDR, data security, CI/CD security, and SaaS telemetry integration.
• Track record deploying automation (SOAR) and achieving measurable improvements in MTTD/MTTR with quality KPIs and SLOs.
• Experience leading intelligence fusion or threat hunting teams, and integrating ATT&CK, the diamond model, and purple-team outcomes into detections.
• Familiarity with privacy-by-design, secure AI usage, and evaluation frameworks for ML/LLM detection use cases.
• Executive presence and board-level communication experience, with the ability to simplify complex incidents into actionable decisions.

Responsibilities

• Own the global detection and response strategy, roadmap, and investment plan, tying security outcomes to business risk and customer trust metrics.
• Lead a multi-layer organization across time zones and build a high-performing leadership bench and succession plan.
• Establish governance with clear OKRs, SLOs, and outcome dashboards for executive and board-level visibility.
• Scale cloud-native detections across identity, data, endpoints, CI/CD, containers, and SaaS using telemetry and modern rule engines.
• Reduce false positives and missed detections through quality gates, purple teaming, and regression testing pipelines.
• Operate an incident response function with 24x7 coverage, incident management, executive communications, and customer and regulatory readiness.
• Drive automation and playbooks for rapid containment, eradication, and recovery, and conduct blameless post-incident reviews with durable fixes.
• Build an intelligence fusion capability that translates external and internal signals into prioritized detections and preemptive controls.
• Run hypothesis-driven threat hunting focused on Atlassian-specific TTPs, with measurable findings-to-detection conversion.
• Partner with Trust Engineering to evolve the security data platform and ensure reliable, privacy-aware telemetry and lineage for detections and analytics.
• Leverage ML/LLM-assisted detections, triage, and summarization responsibly, and define evaluation frameworks and human-in-the-loop controls.
• Align with Product Security, Corporate Security, Governance/Risk, and Security Assessments to close systemic risks and meet customer and regulatory commitments.
• Represent DnR in executive forums, customer escalations, and external audits, building trust through transparency and evidence.

Benefits

• The role may be eligible for benefits, bonuses, commissions, and equity.
• Atlassian offers health and wellbeing resources and paid volunteer days.
• Atlassian offers additional perks and benefits to support employees, their families, and engagement with their local community.

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Senior
• Education Level: No Education Listed