Associate Director, Cyber Defense - Staff Incident Responder

Alnylam Pharmaceuticals; Cambridge (MA); On-site; USD 174,000 - 236,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Medical coverage

401(k) with match

Paid time off

Wellness days

Company-wide breaks

Job summary

Alnylam Pharmaceuticals, a leader in RNAi therapeutics, seeks an Associate Director of Cyber Defense - Staff Incident Responder in Cambridge, MA. You will lead global investigations, perform forensic analysis, and drive threat hunting with hands-on delivery.

This hybrid role requires shaping detection capabilities, developing incident response playbooks, and mentoring junior responders while coordinating with cross-functional teams to reduce risk across the enterprise.

Qualifications

• Minimum 8+ years in incident response or security operations.
• Hands-on experience across endpoints, cloud, network, and identity.
• Strong scripting and automation to scale investigations.

Responsibilities

• Lead complex cyber investigations and incident response across global environments.
• Perform advanced forensic analysis and threat hunting.
• Translate findings into scalable detection and response improvements.
• Develop incident response playbooks and workflows.
• Improve response speed through automation and tuning.
• Build incident response tooling and integrations.
• Lead post-incident analysis and remediation planning.
• Collaborate cross-functionally to reduce enterprise risk.
• Provide mentorship to junior responders and establish best practices.

Skills

Incident response

Digital forensics

Threat hunting

Scripting

MITRE ATT&CK

NIST/CISA

Communication

Tools

Python

Go

PowerShell

Bash

Job description

Overview

Alnylam is pioneering RNAi therapeutics and scaling rapidly across research, development, manufacturing, and global commercialization. The Associate Director, Cyber Defense - Staff Incident Responder will play a critical role in protecting the enterprise by leading complex cyber investigations and advancing detection and response capabilities across a global environment.

Reporting to the Senior Director, Cyber Defense, this senior individual contributor will operate in a highly technical, hands-on capacity-driving incident response, forensic analysis, and threat hunting while shaping how Alnylam detects, investigates, and responds to advanced threats. This role will also help evolve detection and response capabilities through tooling, automation, and scalable engineering approaches.

This is a hybrid position, primarily based in Cambridge, MA and includes participation in an on-call rotation, with flexibility to support incident response outside standard business hours, as needed.

Responsibilities

• Lead complex cyber investigations and incident response across global environments, driving end-to-end containment, eradication, and recovery
• Perform advanced forensic analysis and proactive threat hunting to identify attacker behavior, persistence mechanisms, and lateral movement
• Translate investigation findings into scalable improvements in detection coverage, telemetry, and response effectiveness
• Develop and enhance incident response playbooks, investigation workflows, and containment strategies based on real-world threats
• Improve response speed and effectiveness through detection engineering, alert tuning, automation, and removal of systemic bottlenecks
• Build and evolve incident response tooling, scripts, and integrations to enable scalable and efficient operations
• Influence and optimize the security tooling ecosystem to improve signal quality, visibility, and investigative outcomes
• Lead post-incident analysis, producing clear, actionable reports that drive remediation and strengthen security posture
• Partner cross-functionally to drive remediation, hardening, and long-term risk reduction across the enterprise
• Provide technical leadership and mentorship to junior responders while guiding best practices across Cyber Defense

Qualifications

• 8+ years of hands-on experience in incident response, digital forensics, threat hunting, or security operations within enterprise environments (including cloud)
• Deep investigative expertise across endpoint, cloud, network, and identity domains, including correlation of multi-source telemetry and forensic artifacts
• Strong scripting and automation skills (e.g., Python, Go, PowerShell, Bash) to support scalable investigation and response workflows
• Proven ability to independently lead complex investigations and make high-confidence technical decisions in high-pressure environments
• Strong understanding of attacker tactics, techniques, and procedures, including experience with frameworks such as MITRE ATT&CK
• Experience applying industry incident response frameworks (e.g., NIST, CISA) in real-world scenarios
• Demonstrated impact improving detection and response through tooling, process, or program enhancements
• Experience leading cross-functional initiatives with enterprise-wide impact
• Strong communication skills, with the ability to translate technical findings, risks, and recommendations for technical and non-technical stakeholders

About Alnylam

We are the leader in RNAi therapeutics- a revolutionaryapproach with the potential to transform the lives of people with rare and common diseases. Built on Nobel Prize-winning science, Alnylam has delivered the breakthroughs that made RNAi therapeutics possibleand are just at the beginning of what's possible. Our deep pipeline, late-stage programs, and bold vision reflect our core values: fierce innovation, passion for excellence, purposeful urgency, open culture and commitment to people. We're proud to be a globally recognized top employer, wherean authentic, inclusive culture and breakthrough thinkingfuel one another.

At Alnylam, we commit to an inclusive recruitment process and equal employment opportunity. Qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to their sex, gender or gender identity, sexual orientation, race, color, ethnicity, national origin, ancestry, citizenship, religion, creed, physical or mental disability, pregnancy status or related conditions, genetic information, veteran or military status, marital or familial status, political affiliation, age, or any other factor protected by federal, state, or local law. Alnylam is an E-Verify Employer.

Before applying, please review Alnylam's CandidatePrivacy Notice regarding how Alnylam handles Personal Data you provide with your application for employment.

Benefits

• medical, dental, and vision coverage
• life and disability insurance
• a lifestyle reimbursement program
• flexible spending and health savings accounts
• 401(k)with a generous company match
• paid time off
• wellness days
• holidays, and two company-wide recharge breaks
• generous family resources and leave

U.S. Pay Range

$174,300 — $235,700 USD