Senior Cybersecurity Engineer | Cyber Threat Intelligence & Response

Xplor Education; Auckland; Remote; NZD 120,000 - 180,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Paid Parental Leave

GiveBackDays – 3 days volunteering

Diversity & Inclusion initiatives

Free mental health support

Flexible working arrangements

Job summary

Xplor Education is seeking a hands-on Cyber Threat Intelligence & Response engineer to lead incident response across our platforms. You will triage, investigate, contain and eradicate threats, then recover and improve defenses while coordinating with engineering, IT and leadership.

You should thrive on high-pressure incidents, be comfortable taking ownership from alert to final report, and work remotely from New Zealand with full working rights.

Qualifications

• 3 to 6 years experience in security operations or incident response.
• Experience managing incidents through the full lifecycle.
• Strong triage and root-cause analysis with log correlation.
• Comfort reading logs (HTTP, SMTP, network) and Windows AD.
• Hands-on SIEM experience to investigate, hunt and build detections (MS Sentinel preferred).
• Threat-hunting across network flow and threat intelligence.
• Ability to map attacker activity to Cyber Kill Chain stages.
• Self-starter who works independently and keeps learning.
• Clear, actionable communication to engineers, admins and leadership.
• Familiar with ITIL/ISO27001/PCI DSS processes.

Responsibilities

• Own incidents as part of the CTIR team and drive them to containment.
• Work live incidents and lead when required.
• Lead investigations across systems, logs, endpoints and network data.
• Perform host and network forensics and email analysis to timeline attacker activity.
• Coordinate with engineering, IT and security teams; communicate clearly to stakeholders.
• Hunt for new threats and develop detections and indicators of compromise.
• Build and automate incident response workflows and playbooks.
• Enhance detection coverage using MITRE ATT&CK and tune to reduce noise.
• Feed learnings back to improve detection and response.

Skills

Incident response

Threat hunting

Log analysis

Automation scripting

PowerShell

SIEM

KQL

EDR

SOAR

Tools

Microsoft Sentinel

KQL

EDR

PowerShell

SOAR

Job description

Company Description

Xplor Technologies powers the experiences at the heart of everyday life. Through modern vertical software, embedded payments, and AI-powered capabilities, we help businesses in fitness, recreation, golf and club, field services, laundry, education, and other membership-based and service-based industries simplify operations, uncover insights, and elevate customer and member experiences.

Job Description

About the opportunity

Our Cyber Threat Intelligence & Response (CTIR) engineers are the people we count on when something goes wrong, and the people who make sure it goes wrong far less often. This is a hands-on incident response role. You'll lead the response to security events across our platforms and applications: triage, investigate, contain, eradicate and recover, then make sure we come out of it stronger.

We're looking for someone who genuinely loves incident response. Someone who gets calmer and sharper when an incident kicks off, who is confident making decisions when the picture isn't complete, and who doesn't wait to be told what to look at. If you're a self-starter who takes ownership from the first alert to the final report, you'll fit right in.

Some of the other responsibilities include :

• Own incidents as part of the CTIR team: detect, triage, investigate, contain and eradicate, driving each one until the threat is under control.
• Work live incidents alongside the team and be ready to step up and take the lead yourself when the situation calls for it.
• Lead investigations across our systems, digging into logs, endpoints, email and network data to work out what happened, how far it reached, and how to resolve.
• Perform host and network forensics, malware triage, and email analysis (including PDF and document analysis) to understand attacker activity and build a reliable timeline.
• Coordinate with engineering, IT and the wider security team during a response, and communicate clearly to both technical teams and leadership.
• Hunt proactively for threats across system logs, user behaviour and threat intelligence, turning what you find into new detections and indicators of compromise.
• Build and automate incident response workflows and playbooks so routine response is fast and repeatable.
• Strengthen our detection coverage using the MITRE ATT&CK framework, closing monitoring gaps, and tuning to reduce noise.
• Feed what you learn from each incident back into how the team detects and responds, so an attack pattern we've seen once is caught faster next time.
• Analyse threat intelligence, research emerging threats, and recommend practical mitigation.
• Be ready to work incidents as they arise, including on-call and out-of-hours cover when needed.

For this position, you'll work fully remote. You need to be based in NZ and have full working rights for this region.

Qualifications

What would make me a good candidate?

We are looking for curious and empathetic people. We also love to hear from people who are motivated by meaningful work, resonate with our four core values, have a positive outlook, are comfortable with ambiguity and thrive working in an ever-evolving and complex environment. We are inspired by meeting big picture thinkers and doers, people who can be both tactical and strategic, aim high and put people first in everything they do.

• People who want to make a real difference in security, and who care about incident response in particular.
• 3 to 6 years experience in security operations or incident response, with genuine passion for running incidents, not just watching a queue.
• Confidence managing incidents through the full incident-handling lifecycle, and the judgement to make sound calls under pressure.
• Strong triage and root cause analysis, with a solid understanding of different log sources and how to correlate events across them.
• Comfortable reading logs (HTTP, SMTP, network), Windows and Active Directory, and common operating systems and servers.
• Hands-on experience with a SIEM to investigate, hunt and build detections. Microsoft Sentinel and KQL preferred.
• Practical experience across EDR, advanced threat protection, identity management and API security.
• Threat-hunting experience across network flow, user behaviour and threat intelligence, plus the ability to design new ways to detect and contain attacks using scripting, analytics and automation.
• Familiar with a broad range of attacker tools and techniques (TTPs), with the ability to map adversary activity across the Cyber Kill Chain to identify, assess, and communicate potential attack progression.
• A self-starter who works independently, delivering projects without being chased, and keeps learning as the industry develops.
• A critical thinker with strong problem-solving instincts and exceptional communication skills, capable of translating complex technical risks into clear, actionable insights for both the immediate team and cross-functional partners, including engineers, administrators, and leadership, through both verbal and written communication.
• Good understanding of ITIL processes and standards such as ISO 27001 and PCI DSS, including change, incident and problem management.

Nice to have :

• Malware analysis experience.
• Preferred certifications such as GCIH, GCFA, AZ-500 or SC-100.
• Experience with Jupyter Notebooks for threat-hunting.
• Python and PowerShell scripting.
• Experience building and tuning SOAR automation for response.

At Xplor, we believe the best innovation and ideas happen at the intersections of our differences — across cultures, generations, disciplines, and lived experiences. So even if you do not tick every box, we still encourage you to apply.

Additional Information

Values and Life at Xplor

Our five core values guide us from how we hire and recognise our team members to how we interact with our customers day to day:

• Find a better way
• Do the right thing
• Say it straight
• Win together
• Own the outcome

If these values sound like you, and describe people you want to work with, you will thrive at Xplor.

As an Xplorer, you will be part of a global network of talented colleagues who will support your success. We look for commonalities and shared passions and give people the tools they need to deliver great work and grow at speed.

Some of our perks and benefits are:

• Paid Parental Leave benefit programs
• #GiveBackDays/Commitment to social impact – 3 extra days off to volunteer and give back to your local community
• Ongoing dedication to Diversity & Inclusion initiatives such as D&I Council, Global Mentorship Program
• Access to free mental health support
• Flexible working arrangements

We understand that diverse candidates have diverse needs. We welcome you to inform us of any additional needs related to completing your job application or participating in the interview process, via [email protected]

To be considered for employment, you must be legally authorised to work in the country where the role is advertised. This applies to remote roles too. Xplor does not sponsor visas, either at the time of hire or at any later time. We're also not able to offer contractor arrangements or Employer of Record engagements for this position at this stage.

We also invite you to check out our Candidate FAQs for more information about our recruitment process xplor.com/recruitment-faqs/.

Interview Recording and Background Checks

As part of our hiring process, successful candidates will be asked to complete background and identity verification checks. Many of our roles are remote, and to protect both candidates and our business from recruitment fraud, we may record video interviews during the process. We keep any recordings and related data only for as long as the hiring process is active and do not retain them afterwards.

EEO and Artificial Intelligence

We believe in transparent hiring. We use an applicant tracking system with artificial intelligence-enabled features to support our recruitment process, but our recruitment team makes all hiring decisions after human review. We do not rely on artificial intelligence to make final hiring decisions. Find our Candidate AI Usage guidelines here.

Xplor is dedicated to attracting, retaining and developing our people regardless of gender identity, ethnicity, sexual orientation, disability and age. Applications are encouraged from all sectors of the community and we particularly encourage speakers of Te Reo Māori or Pasifika languages to apply.

We make it a priority to respond to every applicant.