Senior Cyber Defense Engineer

Selective Insurance Company of America; Short Hills (NJ); On-site; USD 130,000 - 176,000; Full time

Job summary

Selective Insurance Company of America is seeking an ITS Cyber Defense Senior Specialist to strengthen our cyber defense posture through a blend of SOC, incident response, and security engineering. You will independently lead and execute complex cybersecurity initiatives from planning through implementation, and serve as a trusted technical resource across IT, business teams, and external partners.

The role works across IT and business units to identify security gaps, define requirements, and

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in Information Technology, Cybersecurity, Computer Science, Information Systems, Risk Management, or related field.
• 7+ years of progressive experience in information technology, information security, or risk-related roles.
• 5+ years of direct cybersecurity experience in security operations, incident response, cyber defense, detection engineering, or related security disciplines.
• Experience coordinating across teams and driving security initiatives from assessment through implementation.
• Industry certifications such as CISSP, GIAC, GCIH, GCIA, GCFA preferred.
• Knowledge of NIST CSF, SOX, HIPAA, NYDFS 23 NYCRR 500.
• Willingness to support after-hours or on-call activities for incident response.

Responsibilities

• Serves as a senior SME and escalation point for Cyber Defense, providing technical leadership to the team.
• Monitors and responds to security alerts across endpoint, network, identity, email, and cloud environments using enterprise security tools.
• Performs alert triage and case management, documents findings, and escalates per procedures.
• Supports and leads incident response activities: scoping, evidence review, containment, and documentation.
• Administers and improves Cyber Defense technologies such as EDR, SIEM, NAC, vulnerability management tools, and other platforms.
• Leads detection and response improvements by tuning alerts and reducing false positives.
• Independently manages technical and operational improvement initiatives and reports progress to stakeholders.
• Partners with internal teams and vendors to support troubleshooting and tool effectiveness.
• Contributes to Cyber Defense policies, standards, and regulatory alignment.
• Participates in IT Security on-call rotation.

Skills

Cybersecurity expertise

Incident response

Security operations

Threat intelligence

Team collaboration

Stakeholder communication

Security tooling (EDR/SIEM)

Education

CISSP/GIAC/GCIH/GCIA/GCFA

Tools

CISSP

GIAC

GCIH

GCIA

GCFA

Job description

Selective Insurance Company of America is seeking an ITS Cyber Defense Senior Specialist to strengthen our cyber defense posture through a blend of SOC, incident response, and security engineering. You will independently lead and execute complex cybersecurity initiatives from planning through implementation, and serve as a trusted technical resource across IT, business teams, and external partners.

The role works across IT and business units to identify security gaps, define requirements, and