Cyber Security Engineer

Astound; Bellingham (WA); On-site; USD 70,000 - 90,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

401k retirement plan with employer match

Medical, dental, vision, life, and STD insurance

Paid Time Off/Vacation starting at 80 hours per year

Tuition reimbursement program

Employee discount program

Job summary

Astound in Bellingham, WA is seeking an experienced cybersecurity professional to lead 24/7 security operations, manage incidents from identification to recovery, and enhance operational procedures. The ideal candidate will possess over 7 years of Cyber Security experience and a Bachelor's degree in a related field.

In addition to competitive base compensation of $70,000 to $90,000, the role offers various benefits including insurance options, paid time off, and a 401k plan with employer match.

Qualifications

• 7+ years of Cyber Security experience.
• Expertise with various security protocols and measures.
• Strong ability to communicate with technical and non-technical audiences.

Responsibilities

• Lead and oversee 24/7 security operations.
• Own the end-to-end incident response lifecycle.
• Conduct root cause analysis and implement corrective actions.
• Mentor and develop SOC analysts and incident responders.

Skills

Cyber Security experience

Debugging attacks

Identity & Access management

End Point Detection

Multi-Factor Authentication

NGFW, IDS/IPS, WAF

Cloud automation and scripting

Education

Bachelor's degree in Cybersecurity, Computer Science or related field

Job description

Responsibilities

• Lead and oversee 24/7 security operations, including monitoring, detection, triage, and incident response across enterprise environments (endpoint, network, identity, and cloud).
• Own the end-to-end incident response lifecycle - including identification, containment, eradication, recovery, and post-incident analysis, ensuring rapid, consistent, and high-quality execution.
• Drive root cause analysis, blast radius determination, and implementation of corrective and preventive actions.
• Establish, maintain, and continuously improve incident response playbooks, escalation procedures, and operational runbooks to enhance response effectiveness and reduce dwell time.
• Act as the primary escalation point for high-severity or complex security incidents, providing technical leadership, decision-making authority, and real-time guidance during active events.
• Lead advanced threat hunting operations using hypothesis-driven methodologies, leveraging EDR/XDR telemetry, SIEM data, network traffic, identity signals, and threat intelligence aligned to MITRE ATT&CK.
• Design, develop, and optimize detection engineering capabilities, including SIEM correlation rules, behavioral analytics, and custom detections to improve coverage and reduce false positives.
• Drive integration and tuning of security technologies (e.g., CrowdStrike, SIEM, SOAR, vulnerability scanners), ensuring alignment to enterprise risk priorities and operational efficiency.
• Define and track key SOC performance metrics (e.g., MTTD, MTTR, alert fidelity, containment time) to measure operational effectiveness and drive continuous improvement.
• Lead cross-functional coordination during incidents, partnering with IT, infrastructure, cloud, legal, HR, and executive leadership to ensure effective response and communication.
• Translate technical incidents into business impact, delivering clear, concise updates to leadership and facilitating decision-making at the executive level.
• Oversee vulnerability management efforts by correlating scan results with asset criticality, exploitability, and threat intelligence to drive risk-based prioritization.
• Lead post-incident reviews, tabletop exercises, and continuous improvement initiatives to strengthen organizational resilience and reduce repeat incidents.
• Mentor and develop SOC analysts and incident responders, establishing investigation standards, quality controls, and career development pathways.
• Ensure proper evidence handling, forensic integrity, and audit-ready documentation aligned with regulatory frameworks (e.g., NIST, CMMC, PCI).
• Identify emerging threats, adversary trends, and attack patterns, and operationalize insights into improved detections, controls, and defensive strategies.
• Analyze alerts to determine legitimacy and potential impact.
• Identify indicators of compromise (IOCs) and attacker tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs).
• Escalate confirmed threats in accordance with established playbooks and procedures.
• Perform initial triage and investigation of security incidents.
• Other duties as assigned.

Qualifications

• 7+ years of Cyber Security experience.
• Demonstrated knowledge of actively debugging attacks.
• Expertise with Identity & Access, End Point Detection and Multi-Factor Authentication.
• Experience with NGFW, IDS/IPS, WAF, Proxy, PKI and Advanced Threat Protection, cloud, automation, and scripting.
• Ability to juggle multiple priorities where you are the driving force, ensuring completion and on-time delivery.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills in a clear business relevant manner that is adjusted to the audience; up, down and across the organization.
• Proven independent decision making in high stress environment.
• Ability to collaborate, mentor and training members of the team.
• Demonstrated passion for security and self-driven to one day become an expert.
• Proven ability to rapidly learn and retain new technologies.
• Excellent interpersonal, customer support, verbal and technical writing skills; be a self-starter with the ability to achieve deadline-driven priorities.
• Demonstrated ability to collaborate and work in a team environment, exhibit professional initiative, self-direction, willingness, and ability to document knowledge and share with others is required.
• Strong communication skills and creativity as a problem solver is a must.

Education

• Bachelor's degree in Cybersecurity, Computer Science, or related field (or equivalent experience).

Benefits

• 401k retirement plan, with employer match
• Insurance options including: medical, dental, vision, life and STD insurance
• Paid Time Off/Vacation: Starting at 80 hours per year, and increases based on tenure with the organization
• Floating Holiday: 40 hours per year
• Paid Holidays: 7 days per year
• Paid Sick Leave: Astound allows a number of paid sick hours per calendar year and varies based on state and/or local laws
• Tuition reimbursement program
• Employee discount program

Base Compensation

The base compensation range for this position is $70,000 - $90,000 plus opportunities for benefits. The base pay range represents the low and high end of the hiring range for this job. Actual pay will vary and may be above or below the range based on various factors including but not limited to location, relevant skills, experience, and capabilities.

Equal Opportunity Employer

Astound is proud to be an Equal Opportunity Employer, and we are dedicated to cultivating an inclusive workplace where employees feel valued, respected, and empowered. Discrimination of any kind has no place here. We are committed to providing equal opportunities for all employees and applicants, regardless of race, color, religion, sex, gender, pregnancy, childbirth and related conditions, national origin, age, physical and mental disability, marital status, sexual orientation, genetic information, military or veteran status, citizenship, or other status or characteristic protected by applicable law. We strive to create a culture that celebrates our differences and promotes fairness and inclusivity in all aspects of our business.