Cyber Defense Engineer – Threat Monitoring & Response

Goodwin Recruiting; West Chicago (IL); On-site; USD 100,000 - 140,000; Full time

Job summary

Goodwin Recruiting is partnering with a growing global organization to hire a Cyber Security Engineer to join its Technology team in the Chicago western suburbs. This hands-on role focuses on protecting enterprise systems, users, applications, and data from evolving threats.

The ideal candidate will bring strong technical security experience and the ability to investigate vulnerabilities and threats, coordinating action across multiple Technology teams and communicating risk clearly.

Qualifications

• 3+ years of hands-on cybersecurity experience in an enterprise setting.
• Experience with vulnerability management and remediation.
• Experience investigating security alerts and incidents.
• Familiarity with Microsoft Defender XDR, Cortex, Tenable/Nessus, or similar platforms.
• Understanding of SIEM, security monitoring, incident response, and threat detection.
• Experience coordinating remediation across Technology teams.
• Understanding of identity security including PAM, MFA, or Conditional Access.
• Strong analytical, investigative, and troubleshooting skills.
• Bachelor's degree or equivalent professional experience; relevant certifications are a plus.

Responsibilities

• Monitor and assess vulnerabilities across enterprise environments.
• Support vulnerability scanning and remediation using Tenable/Nessus or comparable platforms.
• Prioritize vulnerabilities based on severity, exposure, and business impact.
• Coordinate critical patches and remediation with infrastructure, cloud, application, and support teams.
• Monitor emerging cybersecurity threats and determine potential organizational exposure.
• Investigate security alerts and suspicious activity.
• Work with SIEM, XDR, endpoint-security, and other security-monitoring tools.
• Support incident investigation, containment, remediation, recovery, and post-incident review.
• Participate in threat-intelligence and threat-hunting activities.
• Work with technologies such as Microsoft Defender XDR, Cortex, Tenable, and related security platforms.
• Support identity-security controls including PAM, MFA, and Conditional Access.
• Contribute to phishing simulations, security-awareness campaigns, and employee training.
• Support cybersecurity risk assessments, policies, standards, audits, and compliance activities.
• Help improve security monitoring, controls, incident response, and overall cyber resilience.
• Collaborate with Technology and cybersecurity teams across multiple global regions.
• Provide occasional support outside standard business hours when significant cybersecurity threats require immediate investigation or remediation.

Skills

Vulnerability management

Security monitoring

Incident response

Threat hunting

SIEM/XDR tools

Identity security (PAM/MFA/Conditional

Cloud security

Education

Bachelor's degree in Cybersecurity/Info Security/CS

Equivalent professional experience

Tools

Tenable/Nessus

Microsoft Defender XDR

Cortex

SIEM/EDR security platforms

Job description

Goodwin Recruiting is partnering with a growing global organization to hire a Cyber Security Engineer to join its Technology team in the Chicago western suburbs. This hands-on role focuses on protecting enterprise systems, users, applications, and data from evolving threats.

The ideal candidate will bring strong technical security experience and the ability to investigate vulnerabilities and threats, coordinating action across multiple Technology teams and communicating risk clearly.