SOC Manager

Keka Technologies; Bengaluru; On-site; INR 350,000 - 600,000; Full time

Job summary

Keka Technologies in Bengaluru seeks an experienced SOC Manager to lead our Security Operations Center into an engineering-driven, outcome-focused function in the AI era. This hybrid leadership role drives 24x7 operations excellence and collaboration with product teams.

You will own SIEM/SOAR detection lifecycle, guide threat hunting, and mentor high‑performing security teams while improving logging, analytics, and platform capabilities across cloud and on‑prem environments.

Qualifications

• 10-12 years of cybersecurity experience.
• Minimum 4-5 years in SOC Lead / SOC Manager role.
• Experience with SIEM/SOAR platforms and detection engineering.
• Strong understanding of NIST, ISO 27001 and MITRE ATT&CK frameworks.
• Leadership experience and ability to mentor analysts.

Responsibilities

• Lead 24x7 SOC operations including detection, triage, escalation, containment, and recovery.
• Serve as final escalation point (L3/L4) for complex and high-severity incidents.
• Define and enforce incident response lifecycle aligned with NIST, ISO 27001, and MITRE ATT&CK.
• Ensure adherence to SLA / OLA targets (MTTA, MTTR, containment time).
• Publish executive RCA reports and conduct incident briefings.
• Oversee log onboarding, normalization, enrichment, and correlation in SIEM/SOAR.
• Drive threat hunting programs and map coverage to MITRE ATT&CK.
• Act as SOC liaison for Product/Engineering and translate operational pain points into platform enhancements.
• Lead secure onboarding across AWS/Azure/GCP, on-prem, and hybrid environments.
• Mentor L1/L2/L3 analysts and drive training in advanced detection, threat hunting, and automation.

Skills

SOC Leadership

SIEM/SOAR engineering

Incident response

Threat hunting

Team leadership

Cloud security

MITRE ATT&CK

Log analysis

Tools

Splunk

Sentinel

QRadar

Elastic

DNIF

McAfee ESM

Job description

Role Overview

We are seeking a highly experienced and technically strong SOC Manager to lead and evolve our Security Operations Center into a mature, engineering-driven, and outcome-focused capability in the AI driven world.

This role requires a hybrid leader who can:

• Drive 24x7 SOC operations excellence
• Own SIEM/SOAR engineering detection lifecycle
• Collaborate closely with Product Development teams
• Influence platform enhancements through operational intelligence
• Build and mentor high-performing security teams
• Highlight risks and gaps in logging methodologies
• Improve security posture across multi-tenant cloud and on-prem environments

Key Responsibilities

1. SOC Operations Leadership Incident Governance

• Lead 24x7 SOC operations including detection, triage, escalation, containment, and recovery.
• Serve as final escalation point (L3/L4) for complex and high-severity incidents.
• Define and enforce incident response lifecycle aligned with NIST, ISO 27001, and MITRE ATTCK.
• Ensure adherence to SLA / OLA targets (MTTA, MTTR, containment time).
• Conduct executive-level incident briefings and publish detailed RCA reports.
• Ensure compliance with organizational security policies and audit requirements.
• Oversee case quality assurance and investigation standards.

2. SOC Engineering Detection Engineering

• Own SIEM/SOAR architecture optimization and performance tuning.
• Lead log onboarding strategy (cloud, on-prem, hybrid environments).
• Ensure proper log normalization, parsing, enrichment, and correlation.
• Drive full detection use-case lifecycle:
  • Threat modelling
  • Use-case creation
  • Validation tuning
  • Performance measurement
  • Decommissioning of ineffective rules
• Reduce alert fatigue through risk-based alerting, contextual enrichment, and behavioural analytics.
• Implement detection-as-code practices with version-controlled rule management.
• Ensure high ingestion performance and scalable log retention strategies.

3. Threat Hunting Advanced Analysis

• Establish and lead proactive threat hunting programs.
• Map detection coverage against MITRE ATTCK framework.
• Perform advanced investigations including:
  • Packet capture analysis
  • Endpoint telemetry analysis
  • Log correlation across multiple data sources
  • Integrate threat intelligence feeds and manage IOC lifecycle.
• Identify emerging attack patterns and update detection coverage accordingly.

4. Product Engineering Platform Enhancement Ownership

• Act as the primary SOC liaison for Product and Engineering teams.
• Translate operational pain points into structured enhancement requirements.
• Maintain and prioritize a backlog of platform improvements.
• Provide structured feedback on:
  • Detection gaps
  • Alert noise
  • Data ingestion latency
  • Query performance issues
  • UX inefficiencies impacting analysts
• Participate in sprint planning and architecture discussions and provide inputs for enhancements
• Be part of pilot validation of new features prior to production release.
• Quantify impact of enhancements (false positive incident reduction %, MTTR improvement, automation coverage growth).

5. Client Onboarding Security Architecture Oversight

• Lead secure onboarding of customers across:
  • AWS / Azure / GCP
  • On-prem data centers
  • Hybrid architectures
• Conduct log gap assessments and telemetry validation.
• Align detection coverage to client risk profiles.
• Participate in customer governance calls and QBRs.
• Provide architectural recommendations to improve customer security posture.

6. Team Leadership Capability Development

• Lead, mentor, and manage L1/L2/L3 analysts.
• Establish skill matrix and structured career progression roadmap.
• Conduct periodic case audits and performance reviews.
• Develop training programs in:
  • Advanced detection engineering
  • Threat hunting
  • Forensics
  • Automation
• Drive hiring, onboarding, and succession planning.
• Build a high-performance, accountability-driven culture.

7. Metrics, Reporting Continuous Improvement

• Define and monitor SOC KPIs:
  • MTTA / MTTR
  • False positive ratio
  • Detection accuracy
  • Automation coverage
  • Incident recurrence rate reasoning
• Publish monthly executive dashboards.
• Conduct quarterly SOC maturity assessments.
• Drive continuous improvement roadmap aligned with business growth.

Mandatory Technical Skills

• 10-12 years of cybersecurity experience.
• Minimum 4-5 years in SOC Lead / SOC Manager role.
• Strong hands-on experience in at least one SIEM platform:
  • Splunk / Sentinel / QRadar / Elastic / AlienVault / DNIF / McAfee ESM.
• Experience implementing SOAR automation.
• Deep understanding of:
  • Network security (Firewall, IDS/IPS, WAF)
  • EDR/XDR platforms
  • Cloud security (AWS, Azure)
  • Identity Access Management
• Strong knowledge of:
  • MITRE ATTCK Defend
  • NIST NIST IR Framework
  • Defense-in-Depth architecture
• Experience with query writing and log analysis on SIEM technologies.

Preferred Technical Engineering Skills

• Scripting (Python / PowerShell / Bash) would be added advantage.
• Exposure to DevSecOps environments.
• Knowledge of container and Kubernetes, cloud security.
• Data analytics for anomaly detection.
• Familiarity with compliance frameworks:
  • ISO 27001
  • SOC 2
  • PCI-DSS
  • HIPAA

Certifications (Preferred)

• CISSP / CISM
• CEH
• CompTIA Security+
• GIAC Certifications (GCIA / GCIH / GCED)
• Cloud Security Certifications (AWS / Azure / GCP/ Oracle)

Leadership Competencies

• Strong executive communication and stakeholder management.
• Ability to manage high-pressure incidents.
• Strategic thinking with operational excellence.
• Engineering mindset with product-oriented thinking.
• Strong documentation and governance discipline.

Work Model

• Mandatory 5-day work from office (Bangalore or Mumbai).
• On-call availability during major incidents or IR situations.

Skills

• Security Incident Response
• Communication Skills
• Collaboration
• Cybersecurity Strategy
• Certifications Management
• Threat Analysis
• Continuous Learning
• Leadership Team Management
• Policy Development