Security Operations Engineer

Role As a Senior Security Engineer (Security Operations) at Sword, you will be at the forefront of safeguarding our cloud infrastructure and applications. Your expertise will ensure robust security measures, incident response, and continuous improvement. What you’ll be doing - Design and continuously improve detection and alerting controls, ensuring high fidelity and contextual relevance to reduce noise and enable rapid response. - Build, test, and automate incident response playbooks and runbooks, increasing efficiency and consistency across the incident lifecycle. - Drive prioritization of alerts using a data-driven, scalable triage framework, aligned with business impact and threat context. - Lead in-depth investigations, including root cause analysis and digital forensics, and convert findings into actionable insights to strengthen detection and resilience. - Proactively engage in threat intelligence and threat hunting, identifying new tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs), enriching existing controls, and feeding insights into the detection pipeline. - Own incident handling from detection to resolution, collaborating with engineering, IT, and business teams to contain, eradicate, and recover from threats. - Define and maintain operational metrics for incident response, using them to drive continuous improvement in speed, accuracy, and organizational readiness. What you need to have - Required: Public Trust Clearance - Candidates must be able to obtain and maintain a US public trust clearance. - Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Cybersecurity, or equivalent professional experience. - Solid experience in cloud environments (AWS, GCP, or Azure), with strong understanding of cloud-native threats. - Proficiency in scripting languages (e.g., Python, Bash) for automation and tooling development. - Hands-on experience with SOC tools and platforms, such as SIEM (Splunk, Sentinel, etc.), SOAR, EDR/XDR, and log management. - Strong understanding of incident containment and eradication strategies, with proven ability to coordinate response with technical teams. - Familiarity with security frameworks and standards (NIST 800-61, CIS Controls, MITRE ATT&CK, ISO 27001). - Excellent analytical, critical thinking, and problem-solving skills. - Ability to consume and synthesize intelligence about actors, techniques or situations to identify emerging risk scenarios. - Proficiency in process formulation and improvement. - Background in threat modeling, adversary emulation, and risk-based alert tuning. - Strong communicator with the ability to explain security risks and actions to both technical and non-technical audiences. - Proven track record of leading cross-functional efforts in high-pressure situations. - Ability to foster collaboration across InfoSec, IT, and engineering teams. - Forensics experience, investigating incidents and preserving digital evidence. - Leverage AI to automate and optimize security operations workflows, including alert triage, enrichment, and incident classification. - Design and maintain AI-assisted runbooks, ensuring consistency, auditability, and human-in-the-loop validation for critical decisions. - Identify opportunities to improve SOC efficiency through AI-driven automation, while maintaining strong controls and avoiding over-reliance on unverified outputs. - Integrate security tooling with AI platforms and APIs to streamline investigation, response, and reporting processes. - Enhance vulnerability management and incident response workflows through intelligent prioritization, correlation, and contextualization of findings. - Continuously evaluate the accuracy, reliability, and security implications of AI-assisted decisions in operational environments. Public Trust Clearance Candidates must be able to obtain and maintain a US public trust clearance. Please note that US citizenship is required to obtain and maintain a government security clearance. $133,000 - $209,000 a year *This range includes base, variable and equity. These compensation bands are just the starting point. Once someone joins and proves they’re outlier talent, we adjust quickly to ensure their compensation aligns with their impact. Our job titles may span more than one career level. Actual pay is determined by skills, qualifications, experience, location, market demand, and other factors. Compensation details listed in this posting reflect the base salary and any potential variable, bonus or sales incentives, and the Company’s estimation of the value of private company stock options, if applicable. The pay range is subject to change, future value of company stock options is not guaranteed, and compensation may be modified in the future. In addition to our total compensation, Sword offers a number of benefits as listed below. US - Sword Benefits & Perks: • Comprehensive health, dental and vision insurance* • Life and AD&D Insurance* • Financial advisory services* • Supplemental Insurance Benefits (Accident, Hospital and Critical Illness)* • Health Savings Account* • Equity shares* • Discretionary PTO plan* • Parental leave* • 401(k) • Flexible working hours • Remote-first company • Paid company holidays • Free digital therapist for you and your family *Eligibility: Full-time employees regularly working 25+ hours per week Note: Applicants must have a legal right to work in the United States, and immigration or work visa sponsorship will not be provided.