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# Lead Associate Principal, Cyber Defense

- **Company:** The Options Clearing Corporation
- **Location:** Dallas, TX, United States (Remote available)
- **Experience:** Expert
- **Salary:** $132,500 - $218,300
- **Contract:** Permanent contract
- **Skills:** Application Programming Interfaces (APIs), Artificial Intelligence, Cyber Security, Computer Programming, Computer Networks, Computer Forensics, Digital Forensics, Security Information and Event Management, Scripting, Software Security, Generative AI, Cyber Threat Analysis, Cyber Warfare, Operating System Security, Security Orchestration, Automation & Response, Programming Languages
- **Published:** November 4, 2026
- **Apply:** https://jobs.localjobnetwork.com/apply/add/88783910/1

## About the Role

The requirements listed are representative of the knowledge, skill, and/or ability required. Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the primary functions.

 * Team Leadership experience, taking initiative; providing and following through on solutions across various skillsets.
 * Proactive, collaborative leader who works closely with peers and cross-functional teams to resolve issues, delivering both long-term projects and time-sensitive incident response.
 * Experience in SOAR, SIEM, DLP, EDR. Ability to create/tune alerts/rules independently.
 * Knowledge and experience implementing controls based on security regulation (e.g., NIST Cyber Security Framework) is a plus.
 * Effective and excellent oral and written communication, analytical, judgment and consultation skills.
 * Ability to work independently and possess strong project management skills.
 * Ability to effectively communicate in both formal and informal review settings with all levels of management.

Technical Skills:

Demonstrated Expert proficiency in:

 * Usage of SIEM, SOAR, EDR, DLP tools.
 * Security Incident Lifecycle and management
 * Incident Response playbook development managing incident analysis and remediation.
 * Security Orchestration and Automated Response tools and concepts.

Some experience:

 * Scripting and development activities to appropriately leverage Application Programing Interfaces (APIs) to optimize integrations between disparate security monitoring and analysis devices.
 * Knowledge of Generative and Prompt A.I.

Education and/or Experience:

 * Minimum seven years hands-on security operations experience including interdisciplinary experience with four or more of the following: Cyber Threat Analysis, Digital Computer Forensics, Incident Response, Application Security, Operating Systems Security, Cryptographic Controls, Networking, Programming languages, Incident Response.
 * Technical experience and comprehensive knowledge of threat actor capabilities, intentions, methodologies, and motives.
 * Familiarity with computer network exploitation and network attack methodologies while maintaining an understanding of the relationship these activities have with the financial services industry and critical infrastructure.
 * Industry knowledge of leading-edge security technologies and methods.
 * Shift work and working in an on-call response capacity is required including availability for 24 x 7 on-call support responsibilities.
 * Previous project management experience is a plus.

Certificates or Licenses:

 * Strongly prefer at least one of the following certifications: CISSP, GCIA, GCIH, CHFI, GCFA, CASP+.

## Description

The Lead Associate Principal leads cyber incident response, security monitoring, and digital forensics efforts to detect, investigate, and contain threats across the enterprise. The Lead Associate Principal also champions automation, alert optimization, and continuous improvement of SOC processes, supported by project management experience.

Primary Duties and Responsibilities:

To perform this job successfully, an individual must be able to perform each primary duty satisfactorily.

Perform duties across several Cyber disciplines, activities may include:

Incident Management and Security Analysis:

 * Lead cyber security incident responders in response activities including investigation, coordination, review, closure, and reporting.

Security Monitoring & Analysis:

 * Tier-2 support of alerts and validating tuning requests.
 * Alert tuning and reduction.
 * Lead Automation/AI efforts to optimize security operations effort.
 * Ensure accurate documentation.
 * Monitor security alerts and events from various security tools and technologies.
 * Perform advanced analysis of security logs, network traffic, and endpoint data

Digital Forensics

 * Deploy and maintain digital forensic solutions and lead forensic investigations to determine scope, root cause, and impact of security incidents, preserving evidence in accordance with legal and regulatory requirements.

Continuous Improvement:

 * Participate in post-incident reviews to identify areas for improvement.
 * Stay current with the latest cybersecurity trends, threats, and technologies.
 * Lead the development and enhancement of SOC processes, procedures, and SOAR/AI-driven automation.