Senior Detection & Response Engineer - Threat Hunting

New Zealand Transport Agency; Palmerston North; On-site; NZD 160,000 - 230,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Flexible working arrangements

Professional development

Career growth opportunities

Inclusive culture

Job summary

NZ Transport Agency | Waka Kotahi is seeking three Principal Engineers, Detection and Response to strengthen our cyber defence capability. You will lead detection engineering, threat hunting and incident response across SIEM, XDR and EDR platforms.

In this senior technical role you will design and tune detection content, drive automation and SOAR playbooks, and provide expert guidance during significant cyber incidents. A security mindset and continuous learning are essential.

Qualifications

• Extensive experience designing and tuning detection rules across SIEM/XDR/EDR.
• Experience threat hunting and translating intel into detections.
• Ability to lead detection content quality and incident response improvement.
• Willingness to obtain NZ national security clearance.

Responsibilities

• Designing, tuning and maintaining detection rules, correlation logic and behavioural analytics across SIEM/XDR/EDR platforms.
• Leading threat hunting activities and translating threat intelligence into actionable detection content.
• Identifying detection coverage gaps and driving continuous improvement across the detection capability.
• Developing automation, SOAR playbooks and response workflows to improve security operations.
• Setting quality standards and validating detection content before deployment.
• Providing specialist expertise for security tool and platform evaluations.
• Acting as a tactical responder for significant cyber incidents, supporting containment, eradication and recovery.

Skills

Threat detection engineering

Threat hunting

Incident response

Automation & SOAR

SIEM/XDR/EDR

Technical leadership

MITRE ATT&CK awareness

Tools

SIEM platforms

XDR

EDR

Job description

NZ Transport Agency | Waka Kotahi is seeking three Principal Engineers, Detection and Response to strengthen our cyber defence capability. You will lead detection engineering, threat hunting and incident response across SIEM, XDR and EDR platforms.

In this senior technical role you will design and tune detection content, drive automation and SOAR playbooks, and provide expert guidance during significant cyber incidents. A security mindset and continuous learning are essential.