Head of Detection and Response

Atlassian; San Francisco (CA); Hybrid; USD 294,000 - 384,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Health & wellbeing resources

Paid volunteer days

Job summary

Atlassian is seeking a Head of Detection & Response to lead global incident detection, response, threat intelligence, and security operations in cloud-first environments. You will shape strategy, drive outcomes, and partner across Trust, Product Security, and Governance to protect customers and data.

You will oversee a 24/7 IR function, implement automated playbooks, and build an intel fusion capability to preempt threats.

Qualifications

• 15+ years in security with leadership experience
• Proven incident management across multiple regions and cloud-first environments
• Depth in cloud platforms, identity, endpoint/EDR, data security, CI/CD security, and SaaS telemetry

Responsibilities

• Own global detection and response strategy, roadmap and investment plan; tie security outcomes to business risk and customer trust metrics.
• Lead a multi-region organization; build leadership bench and succession plan.
• Establish governance with OKRs, SLOs, and dashboards for executive visibility.
• Scale cloud-native detections across identity, data, endpoints, CI/CD, containers, and SaaS.
• Reduce false positives and missed detections via quality gates, purple teaming, and regression testing.
• Operate IR with 24x7 coverage, incident management, executive comms, and regulatory readiness.
• Drive automation and playbooks for rapid containment, eradication, and recovery; post-incident reviews with durable fixes.
• Build intel fusion to translate signals into prioritized detections and controls.
• Partner with Trust Engineering to evolve the security data platform and telemetry lineage.

Skills

Security leadership

Cloud security

SOC/IR leadership

Threat intel & hunting

Automation/SOAR

Executive communication

Security strategy

Job description

Overview

The Head of Detection & Response (DnR) is a senior security engineering leader accountable for Atlassian’s global incident detection, response, threat intelligence, and security operations programs. This role drives strategy, execution, and measurable outcomes across cloud-first environments, enabling Atlassian to prevent, detect, and respond to threats at scale while building customer trust.

Working at Atlassian

Atlassians can choose where they work – whether in an office, from home, or a combination of the two. That way, Atlassians have more control over supporting their family, personal goals, and other priorities. We can hire people in any country where we have a legal entity.

Responsibilities

Strategy and Leadership

• Own the global detection and response strategy, roadmap, and investment plan, tying security outcomes to business risk and customer trust metrics.
• Lead a multi-layer organization across time zones; build a high-performing leadership bench and succession plan.
• Establish governance with clear OKRs, SLOs, and outcome dashboards for executive and board-level visibility.

Detection Engineering

• Scale cloud-native detections across identity, data, endpoints, CI/CD, containers, and SaaS leveraging telemetry and modern rule engines.
• Continuously reduce false positives and missed detections through quality gates, purple teaming, and regression testing pipelines.

Incident Response and Operations

• Operate a world-class IR function with 24x7 coverage, incident management, executive comms, and customer/regulatory readiness.
• Drive automation and playbooks for rapid containment, eradication, and recovery; blameless post-incident reviews with durable fixes.

Threat Intelligence and Hunting

• Build an intel fusion capability that translates external and internal signals into prioritized detections and preemptive controls.
• Run hypothesis-driven threat hunting focused on Atlassian-specific TTPs, with measurable findings-to-detection conversion.

Platform, Data, and AI Enablement

• Partner with Trust Engineering to evolve the security data platform; ensure reliable, privacy-aware telemetry and lineage for detections and analytics.
• Leverage ML/LLM-assisted detections, triage, and summarization responsibly; define evaluation frameworks and human-in-the-loop controls.

Risk, Compliance, and Partnering

• Align with Product Security, Corporate Security, Governance/Risk, and Security Assessments to close systemic risks and meet customer/regulatory commitments.
• Represent DnR in executive forums, customer escalations, and external audits; build trust through transparency and evidence.

Compensation

At Atlassian, we strive to design equitable, explainable, and competitive compensation programs. We follow consistent hiring practices and account for each candidate's skills, knowledge, and experience when setting base pay within the range.

Please visit go.atlassian.com/payzones for more information on which locations are included in each of our geographic pay zones. However, please confirm the zone for your specific location with your recruiter.

This role may also be eligible for benefits, bonuses, commissions, and equity.

Role

In The United States, we have three geographic pay zones. For this role, our current base pay ranges for new hires in each zone are:

• Zone A: $294,300 - $384,225
• Zone B: $265,500 - $346,625
• Zone C: $244,269 - $318,907

Qualifications

• 15+ years in security with 7+ years leading multi-region detection/response or SOC/IR organizations at large-scale cloud-first companies.
• Proven success running high-severity incidents end to end, including executive and customer communications and regulatory readiness.
• Depth in cloud platforms, identity, modern endpoint/EDR, data security, CI/CD security, and SaaS telemetry integration.
• Track record deploying automation (SOAR) and measurable improvements in MTTD/MTTR with quality KPIs and SLOs.
• Experience leading intel fusion or threat hunting teams; integrating ATT&CK, diamond model, and purple-team outcomes into detections.
• Familiarity with privacy-by-design, secure AI usage, and evaluation frameworks for ML/LLM detection use cases.
• Executive presence with board-level communication experience; ability to simplify complex incidents into actionable decisions.

Benefits & Perks

Atlassian offers a wide range of perks and benefits designed to support you, your family and to help you engage with your local community. Our offerings include health and wellbeing resources, paid volunteer days, and so much more. To learn more, visit go.atlassian.com/perksandbenefits.

About Atlassian

At Atlassian, we're motivated by a common goal: to unleash the potential of every team. Our software products help teams all over the planet and our solutions are designed for all types of work. Team collaboration through our tools makes what may be impossible alone, possible together.

We believe that the unique contributions of all Atlassians create our success. To ensure that our products and culture continue to incorporate everyone's perspectives and experience, we never discriminate based on race, religion, national origin, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, age, or marital, veteran, or disability status. All your information will be kept confidential according to EEO guidelines.

To provide you the best experience, we can support with accommodations or adjustments at any stage of the recruitment process. Simply inform our Recruitment team during your conversation with them.

To learn more about our culture and hiring process, visit go.atlassian.com/crh.

In line with local law, identity verification (which may include use of biometric data) is a condition of employment with Atlassian for employment fraud purposes.