Executive Cyber Threat Intelligence Leader

Synchrony Financial; Olde West Chester (OH); Hybrid; USD 170,000 - 290,000; Full time

Job summary

Synchrony Financial seeks a Cyber Intelligence Leader to direct CTI, detection engineering, and cyber hunt programs. You translate external and internal threat signals into actionable intelligence, driving proactive hunts and measurable detection improvements across the enterprise.

You will partner with JSOC, Incident Response, Vulnerability Management, and infrastructure teams to reduce adversary dwell time and strengthen cyber defenses, shaping multi-year strategies including AI-based

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in computer science or equivalent.
• 5+ years of cybersecurity experience with depth in threat intelligence, threat hunting, detection engineering, and/or incident response.
• 3+ years leading teams and/or enterprise programs with measurable outcomes.
• Experience building and operationalizing detections within a SIEM/EDR environment and partnering with SOC/IR.
• Strong knowledge of adversary tactics and frameworks (MITRE ATT&CK) and applying them to detection coverage.
• Proficiency working with security telemetry across endpoint, network, cloud, and edge; strong investigative mindset.
• Strong written and verbal communication skills; ability to brief executives and produce clear technical documentation/runbooks.
• Ability and flexibility to travel for business as required.

Responsibilities

• Define intelligence requirements and collection plans focused on threats relevant to financial services and Synchrony's environment.
• Produce strategic, operational, and tactical intelligence (executive reporting, actor/campaign tracking, TTP and IOC packages).
• Translate intelligence into detection content, hunt hypotheses, response playbooks, and prioritized mitigations.
• Manage the intelligence lifecycle (collection → analysis → production → dissemination → feedback).
• Lead hypothesis-driven hunts mapped to MITRE ATT&CK, focused on high-risk scenarios and validated by telemetry.
• Coordinate hunts across endpoint, network, cloud, identity, and edge/WAF; document repeatable hunt playbooks.
• Escalate validated suspicious activity to Incident Response and support containment/remediation as needed.
• Convert hunt findings into durable improvements: detections, data onboarding/enrichment, and control remediation.
• Lead a detection engineering function responsible for building and maintaining detection content and analytics across the enterprise.
• Develop detection standards and a structured tuning process.
• Ensure detections are threat-informed and measurable, aligned to JSOC workflow.
• Drive detection validation through purple-team/attack simulations and real incident lessons learned.
• Partner with SOC to improve alert fidelity and escalation criteria.
• Maintain a detection backlog and release cadence; ensure change control and auditability.
• Perform other duties and/or special projects as assigned.

Skills

Threat intel

Threat hunting

Detection engineering

Incident response

MITRE ATT&CK

Executive communication

Travel flexibility

Education

Bachelor's degree in CS or equivalent

Tools

SIEM/EDR

Job description

Synchrony Financial seeks a Cyber Intelligence Leader to direct CTI, detection engineering, and cyber hunt programs. You translate external and internal threat signals into actionable intelligence, driving proactive hunts and measurable detection improvements across the enterprise.

You will partner with JSOC, Incident Response, Vulnerability Management, and infrastructure teams to reduce adversary dwell time and strengthen cyber defenses, shaping multi-year strategies including AI-based