Head of Proactive Threat Defence and Detection Engineering

Booking.com; Amsterdam; On-site; EUR 150,000 - 210,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Health insurance

Headspace access for you and family

Global Employee Assistance Program

Parental leave

Job summary

Booking.com is seeking a senior leader to head the Enterprise Security Cyber Defence team across Amsterdam and Bucharest. You will guide threat-informed defence, shape strategy with senior leaders, and mentor threat researchers and engineers.

This role is not hands-on keyboard work; you will drive detection engineering, adversary emulation, telemetry initiatives, and SOAR automation, aligning risk-based priorities and delivering measurable protection at scale.

Qualifications

• 2+ years directly managing and developing engineers, researchers, or other senior technical specialists.
• 5+ years in cybersecurity, security engineering, threat research, or detection & response.
• A people-first leadership style that pairs empathy with accountability.
• Strong stakeholder communication — translating complex work into business impact and risk reduction.
• Fluency in adversary TTPs, MITRE ATT&CK, and modern detection engineering practice.

Responsibilities

• Lead and develop a team of threat researchers and engineers across Amsterdam and Bucharest.
• Shape strategy with leadership; set priorities and manage resource planning to align with risk-based goals.
• Expand telemetry and detection coverage across critical assets and cloud environments.
• Own validation programs, adversary emulation, and performance KPIs to drive improvements.
• Drive AI-driven automation and detection engineering to reduce manual toil and accelerate response.

Skills

People leadership

Cybersecurity

Threat hunting

Adversary emulation

Detection engineering

Stakeholder communication

MITRE ATT&CK

Tools

SIEM

SOAR

Job description

Booking.com is seeking a senior leader to head the Enterprise Security Cyber Defence team across Amsterdam and Bucharest. You will guide threat-informed defence, shape strategy with senior leaders, and mentor threat researchers and engineers.

This role is not hands-on keyboard work; you will drive detection engineering, adversary emulation, telemetry initiatives, and SOAR automation, aligning risk-based priorities and delivering measurable protection at scale.