Incident Response Lead — Hybrid, Cyber Resilience Mentor

DEFEND; Wellington; Hybrid; NZD 150,000 - 210,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

3.5% KiwiSaver on top of base salary

Southern Cross Health Insurance

Mobile and broadband discounts

Flexible, hybrid work environment

Home office setup allowance

EAP services

Job summary

DEFEND is seeking an Incident Response Lead in New Zealand to guide organisations through critical cyber moments. You will coordinate major incidents, hunt threats that evade controls, and conduct compromise assessments.

You will mentor others, drive recovery with clarity, and strengthen resilience across DEFEND and client environments. You will lead investigations end-to-end, work hands-on with forensic analysis, and communicate findings to technical teams and executives with confidence in

Qualifications

• Proven experience leading and coordinating complex incident response engagements across customer environments.
• Strong hands-on digital forensics and investigative skills across endpoint, network and cloud environments.
• Sound working knowledge of incident response frameworks and methodologies such as NIST and SANS.

Responsibilities

• Lead major cyber incidents from initial investigation through containment and recovery.
• Conduct investigations, analyze forensic evidence, determine attacker access and next actions.
• Hunt threats using threat intelligence and adversary behavior to uncover bypassed controls.
• Oversee compromise assessments and threat hunts to reveal current or historic intrusions and exposure.
• Translate complex findings into clear guidance for technical teams and executives under pressure.
• Mentor teammates, improve playbooks and enhance incident response capabilities across the team.

Skills

Incident response leadership

Threat hunting

Digital forensics

Stakeholder communication

Incident coordination

Job description

DEFEND is seeking an Incident Response Lead in New Zealand to guide organisations through critical cyber moments. You will coordinate major incidents, hunt threats that evade controls, and conduct compromise assessments.

You will mentor others, drive recovery with clarity, and strengthen resilience across DEFEND and client environments. You will lead investigations end-to-end, work hands-on with forensic analysis, and communicate findings to technical teams and executives with confidence in