Cybersecurity Operations Senior

DEFEND; Christchurch; Hybrid; NZD 120,000 - 150,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

KiwiSaver 3.5%

Health insurance

Mobile & broadband discounts

Hybrid work environment

Home office allowance

EAP services

Job summary

DEFEND in Christchurch is seeking a Cybersecurity Operations Senior to lead advanced monitoring, investigation, and response, helping protect customers and strengthen team expertise.

You will collaborate across internal teams, perform threat triage, support major incidents, mentor analysts, and maintain high-quality customer reporting while contributing to continuous improvement.

Qualifications

• Strong experience in threat detection.
• Strong experience in incident response.
• Experience in threat intelligence and threat hunting.
• Strong reporting and documentation skills.
• Excellent communication skills across technical and non-technical audiences.
• Strong remediation and investigation capability.
• A collaborative approach and willingness to support others in the team.

Responsibilities

• Deliver security services by engaging, collaborating, and communicating with internal teams and stakeholders.
• Monitor security events and alerts to identify potential threats and emerging risks.
• Perform advanced alert triage, investigation, and analysis to assess severity, impact, and required response actions.
• Act as a senior escalation point for complex or high-risk security events and incidents.
• Conduct threat scope and impact analysis, document findings, and correlate threat intelligence for actionable insights.
• Review and contribute to high-quality customer reporting and operational documentation.
• Support major incident response activities and contribute to post-incident review and continuous improvement efforts.
• Provide guidance and knowledge sharing to other analysts where needed, helping lift consistency and quality across the team.
• Participate in a 24/7 on-call rotation, ensuring rapid response and service delivery during critical incidents.
• Maintain accurate documentation of all security monitoring and incident response activities.

Skills

Threat detection

Incident response

Threat intelligence

Threat hunting

Report writing

Communication

Remediation

Collaboration

Tools

Microsoft Defender

Microsoft Sentinel

KQL

Automations

Job description

At DEFEND, we deliver world-class cyber resilience through engineered solutions and expert frontline defense. Our Cybersecurity Operations Seniors provide advanced monitoring, investigation, and response capability, helping protect customers, improve operational outcomes, and support the team through experience, judgement, and technical depth.

In this role you'll...

• Deliver security services by engaging, collaborating, and communicating with internal teams and stakeholders.
• Monitor security events and alerts to identify potential threats and emerging risks.
• Perform advanced alert triage, investigation, and analysis to assess severity, impact, and required response actions.
• Act as a senior escalation point for complex or high-risk security events and incidents.
• Conduct threat scope and impact analysis, document findings, and correlate threat intelligence for actionable insights.
• Review and contribute to high-quality customer reporting and operational documentation.
• Support major incident response activities and contribute to post-incident review and continuous improvement efforts.
• Provide guidance and knowledge sharing to other analysts where needed, helping lift consistency and quality across the team.
• Participate in a 24/7 on-call rotation, ensuring rapid response and service delivery during critical incidents.
• Maintain accurate documentation of all security monitoring and incident response activities.

Requirements

You'll bring...

• Strong experience in threat detection
• Strong experience in incident response
• Experience in threat intelligence and threat hunting
• Strong reporting and documentation skills
• Excellent communication skills across technical and non-technical audiences
• Strong remediation and investigation capability
• A collaborative approach and willingness to support others in the team

Technical Skills

• Microsoft Defender
• Microsoft Sentinel
• KQL
• Alert AnalysisScripting & Automation
• Report Writing

Benefits

About DEFEND:

Our dream at DEFEND is to improve everyday life by creating a cyber resilient world. Over the last few years, we've experienced phenomenal growth, working with a wide variety of customers and winning several industry awards, including Microsoft's Global Partner of theYear for 2025!

Why DEFEND?

We believe in investing in our employees' growth and providing them with opportunities to advance their skills and careers. We offer a collaborative workplace culture, and we are committed to fostering an inclusive environment where innovative thinking is encouraged.

By joining our innovative and creative team you will have the opportunity to contribute a variety of cybersecurity outcomes, from culture & awareness of cyber resilience, through to offensive & defensive security. No matter what your role, everyone at DEFEND contributes towards our dream ofcreating a cyber resilient world.

The benefits of working at DEFEND

In addition to workingfor a growing, dynamic NZcompany, DEFEND offers the following benefits to all ourDEFENDers

• 3.5%Kiwisaveron top of your base salary

• Southern Cross Health Insurance coverage

• Mobile and Broadband discounts for yourself and family

• Flexible, hybrid work environment

• An allowance to contribute to your home office setup

• Access to EAP services to support youacross a range of wellbeing needs

Diversity & Inclusion:

At DEFEND, we celebrate a variety of perspectives and experiences. We know from experience that people from underrepresented groups often don't apply for roles they don't feel they meet all the criteria for. We're committed to creating an environment that enables all our team to thrive. If you think you have what it takes, but don't check every single box, please consider applying. We'd love to hear how you might contribute to the team and being our next DEFENDer.