Key Responsibilities and Required Skills for Director of Cyber Defense

🎯 Role Definition

The Director of Cyber Defense is a senior security leader accountable for building and operating the organization's Security Operations Center (SOC), incident response program, threat hunting capability, detection engineering, and continuous monitoring across on-premises and cloud environments. This leader defines strategy, priorities, and metrics for detection and response, manages teams of analysts and engineers, partners with IT, risk, and business stakeholders, and ensures rapid containment of advanced threats while improving telemetry, automation, and resilience. Key responsibilities include threat detection roadmap, playbook development, crisis management, vendor relationships (MDR/EDR/SIEM), and driving continuous program maturity aligned to frameworks such as NIST CSF, MITRE ATT&CK, and ISO 27001.

📈 Career Progression

Typical Career Path

Entry Point From:

Head of SOC / SOC Manager with multi-domain experience
Senior Incident Response Manager or Threat Hunting Lead
Principal Security Engineer / Security Architect with SOC responsibilities

Advancement To:

Chief Information Security Officer (CISO)
VP/Head of Global Security or Security Operations
Chief Security Officer (CSO) in large enterprises

Lateral Moves:

Head of Threat Intelligence
Director of Security Engineering / Detection Engineering
Director of Cloud Security or Identity & Access Management (IAM)

Core Responsibilities

Primary Functions

Develop and execute the enterprise cyber defense strategy, including SOC operating model, incident response lifecycle, detection engineering roadmap, threat hunting program, and telemetry acquisition plan to reduce mean time to detect (MTTD) and mean time to respond (MTTR).
Lead, mentor, and scale a multi-tiered Security Operations Center (Tier 1–3 analysts, incident responders, detection engineers, threat hunters), defining clear roles, career paths, staffing models, and 24x7 on-call rotations to maintain continuous coverage.
Own and continuously improve incident response playbooks, runbooks, and crisis procedures; lead major incident response efforts, coordinate cross-functional containment and remediation, and deliver post-incident root cause analysis and improvement plans.
Design and implement advanced detection coverage using SIEM (e.g., Splunk, QRadar, Microsoft Sentinel), EDR/XDR platforms (e.g., CrowdStrike, Carbon Black, Microsoft Defender), and network telemetry to identify attacker behaviors consistent with MITRE ATT&CK techniques.
Establish and operate a threat hunting program that proactively searches for living-off-the-land techniques, lateral movement, persistence mechanisms, and other advanced adversary activity using telemetry, custom detection rules, and hypothesis-driven investigations.
Define and manage detection engineering practices: author and validate analytics, detections, correlation rules, anomaly detection models, and automated response playbooks to reduce alert fatigue and increase signal-to-noise ratio.
Develop and maintain a prioritized telemetry acquisition plan (logs, endpoint, network, cloud, identity) and oversee log collection, normalization, retention policies, and data lifecycle to ensure adequate coverage for detection and forensics.
Establish metrics and KPIs (MTTD, MTTR, detection coverage, false positive rate, incidents by type, dwell time) and report regular program health, trends, and ROI to senior leadership and the Board as required.
Oversee digital forensics and evidence preservation for security incidents, coordinating internal forensic teams and external vendors to enable investigations, legal requirements, and potential law enforcement engagement.
Coordinate security architecture and engineering to ensure secure-by-design telemetry, sensor placement, detection capability, and integration across cloud workloads (AWS, Azure, GCP), container platforms, and SaaS applications.
Manage vendor selection and relationships for SIEM, EDR/XDR, threat intelligence, MDR, SOAR, and managed services; negotiate contracts, SLAs, and drive vendor performance to meet operational requirements and cost targets.
Drive automation and orchestration initiatives (SOAR) to standardize playbooks, accelerate containment actions (isolate host, revoke credentials, block IPs), and reduce manual triage effort while maintaining human-in-the-loop controls for critical actions.
Partner closely with Identity & Access Management, Cloud Security, Network, and Application Security teams to align detection logic, escalate incidents, and reduce attack surface exposure through joint remediation programs.
Lead adversary simulation programs (purple team exercises, red team engagements) to validate detection coverage, tune detections, and harden defenses against identified attacker techniques and TTPs.
Ensure compliance with regulatory, audit, and contract security obligations (HIPAA, PCI-DSS, SOX, GDPR), providing required reporting, evidence, and remediation plans tied to SOC operations and incident handling.
Create and manage an annual cyber defense budget; prioritize investments in telemetry, tooling, staffing, training, and continuous improvement initiatives aligned to risk and business priorities.
Maintain and evolve a security incident communication and escalation framework, including executive reporting, legal and privacy coordination, customer notification procedures, and public relations handling for major incidents.
Implement threat intelligence integration into SOC workflows—consuming, tuning, and operationalizing internal and external intelligence feeds to improve detection, blocklists, and enrichment of alerts.
Champion security awareness and tabletop exercises with business units to improve cross-functional readiness, run regular incident drills, and validate the effectiveness of playbooks under realistic scenarios.
Drive continuous improvement and change management for security operations by soliciting analyst feedback, conducting after-action reviews, tracking remediation, and institutionalizing lessons learned into process and controls.
Lead recruitment, retention, and professional development programs for cyber defense talent, including training budgets, certification incentives, and partnerships with external training providers.
Evaluate and integrate emerging technologies (behavioral analytics, UEBA, deception technology, ML-driven detection) into the SOC roadmap where they provide measurable detection or efficiency gains.

Secondary Functions

Provide ad-hoc executive briefings and board-level summaries on cyber defense posture, incident trends, and program investments.
Support compliance, audit, and regulatory requests by delivering evidence of detection capability, incident timelines, and SOC processes.
Contribute to the enterprise security strategy and roadmap by aligning SOC priorities with business risk, cloud transformation, and secure digital initiatives.
Collaborate with business units and IT to translate business risks into monitoring requirements and to prioritize remediation of high-risk findings.
Participate in vendor evaluations, proof-of-concepts, and procurement decisions for security operations tooling and managed services.
Maintain cross-functional relationships with Legal, Privacy, HR, and Communications to coordinate investigations and ensure lawful, compliant incident handling.
Provide mentorship and technical guidance for hands-on incident responders and detection engineers; support career development and succession planning.
Assist the security architecture team with threat-informed design reviews and telemetry planning for new applications and infrastructure projects.

Required Skills & Competencies

Hard Skills (Technical)

Security Operations Center (SOC) leadership and SOC program design
Incident Response and Digital Forensics (IR playbooks, evidence handling, remediation)
SIEM implementation and advanced use cases (Splunk, IBM QRadar, Microsoft Sentinel)
Endpoint Detection & Response (EDR/XDR) platforms (CrowdStrike, Carbon Black, SentinelOne, Microsoft Defender)
Threat hunting methodologies and hypothesis-driven investigations
Detection engineering: writing and validating detections, correlation rules, and analytics tuning
Cloud security telemetry and monitoring (AWS CloudTrail, Azure Monitor, GCP logging)
Network security and packet-level analysis (Zeek, NetFlow, IDS/IPS fundamentals)
Threat intelligence integration and operationalization (TI feeds, CTI platforms)
SOAR and automation of containment workflows (Palo Alto Cortex XSOAR, Demisto, Splunk Phantom)
Knowledge of security frameworks and standards (NIST CSF, MITRE ATT&CK, CIS Controls, ISO 27001)
Vulnerability management coordination and prioritization for SOC remediation
Scripting and automation (Python, PowerShell, bash) for detection development and forensic tasks
Familiarity with compliance regimes (HIPAA, PCI-DSS, GDPR, SOX) as they impact incident response and logging

Soft Skills

Strategic leadership with ability to translate technical risk into business priorities and executive-level reporting
Excellent written and verbal communication for incident briefings, playbooks, and stakeholder engagement
Strong people management, mentoring, and team-building skills to attract and retain high-performing security analysts
Calm, decisive crisis management and the ability to lead cross-functional teams under pressure
Analytical mindset with solid problem solving, prioritization, and data-driven decision making
Influence and persuasion skills to secure budget and drive adoption of security recommendations across the organization
Continuous improvement orientation and receptiveness to feedback and process refinement
High ethical standards, sound judgment, and respect for privacy and legal constraints during investigations

Education & Experience

Educational Background

Minimum Education:

Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Information Security, Cybersecurity, Information Systems, or related technical field.

Preferred Education:

Master's degree in Cybersecurity, Information Security, Business Administration (with security focus), or related advanced degree.
Industry certifications such as CISSP, CISM, SANS/GIAC (GCIA, GCIH, GCFA), or equivalent demonstrate mastery of security operations and incident response.

Relevant Fields of Study:

Computer Science
Cybersecurity / Information Security
Information Systems / Network Engineering

Experience Requirements

Typical Experience Range:

8–15+ years of progressive experience in cybersecurity, with a minimum of 5+ years in SOC, incident response, or threat hunting leadership roles.

Preferred:

10+ years of combined experience in security operations, incident response, and threat intelligence, with demonstrated success building or scaling SOC functions in medium to large enterprises.
Proven track record leading cross-functional incident responses, managing vendor relationships for MDR/EDR/SIEM, and delivering measurable improvements in MTTD/MTTR and detection coverage.
Experience with cloud security, large-scale logging architectures, and regulatory environments applicable to the business.