Incident Response Leader & Threat Hunter

DEFEND Limited; Wellington; Hybrid; NZD 180,000 - 240,000; 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 allowance

Access to EAP services

Job summary

DEFEND Limited in New Zealand seeks an Incident Response Lead to guide organisations through critical cyber moments. You will coordinate major incidents, drive recovery, and strengthen cyber resilience while acting as a trusted SME for clients and colleagues.

You will lead complex investigations end-to-end, perform threat hunting and compromise assessments, translate findings into clear guidance for technical teams and executives, and mentor others to raise the team’s capabilities.

Qualifications

• Proven experience leading and coordinating complex incident response engagements across customer environments.
• Hands-on digital forensics across endpoint, network and cloud environments.
• Strong knowledge of incident response frameworks (NIST, SANS) and application in live incidents.
• Threat hunting experience, forming/testing hypotheses and uncovering evasive threats.
• Ability to translate technical findings into clear recommendations for technical teams and executives.
• Excellent written and verbal communication, with stakeholder management skills.

Responsibilities

• Coordinate major cyber incidents from investigation through containment and recovery.
• Conduct hands-on investigations through forensic analysis.
• Hunt for threats using threat intelligence and adversary behavior.
• Lead compromise assessments and threat hunts to surface intrusion and risk.
• Turn findings into clear, actionable guidance for teams and executives.
• Mentor colleagues and improve incident response playbooks and processes.

Skills

Incident response leadership

Digital forensics

Threat hunting

Threat intelligence

Stakeholder communication

Leadership

Mentoring

Job description

DEFEND Limited in New Zealand seeks an Incident Response Lead to guide organisations through critical cyber moments. You will coordinate major incidents, drive recovery, and strengthen cyber resilience while acting as a trusted SME for clients and colleagues.

You will lead complex investigations end-to-end, perform threat hunting and compromise assessments, translate findings into clear guidance for technical teams and executives, and mentor others to raise the team’s capabilities.