Senior Program Manager – Detection Engineering

Bernard Nickels & Associates; United States; Hybride; USD 140 000 - 170 000; Temps partiel

Résumé du poste

Bernard Nickels & Associates seeks a Senior Program Manager with strong cybersecurity experience to lead Detection Engineering programs within a SOC environment. You will own programmatic delivery of detection use cases from conception to deployment and tuning.

A core focus is scaling security monitoring for AI systems, addressing prompt injection, model abuse, data exfiltration, and anomalous AI/ML activity. Strong technical program management and SOC/Threat detection expertise are required.

Qualifications

• Experience leading Detection Engineering programs within a SOC or security operations environment.
• Strong program management skills with governance, roadmaps, and KPI tracking.
• Hands-on understanding of SIEM rule creation, alert tuning, and threat detection workflows.
• Familiarity with MITRE ATT&CK mapping and detection coverage.
• Experience or collaboration with AI/ML security, GenAI, or AI-system monitoring.

Responsabilités

• Own end-to-end Detection Engineering lifecycle from intake to deployment and tuning.
• Maintain and prioritize a detection backlog aligned with SOC priorities.
• Establish governance, milestones, roadmaps, risk logs, and executive reporting.
• Drive development of detection use cases focused on AI systems and AI threats.
• Partner with AI/ML teams, data science, SOC, threat intel, cloud, and security engineering.

Connaissances

Detection Engineering

SOC Operations

Program Management

AI Security

Threat Detection

MITRE ATT&CK

Detection-as-Code

Outils

Splunk

Microsoft Sentinel

Google Chronicle

Elastic SIEM

Description du poste

Location: Irving, TX (Dallas/Fort Worth Area) – Hybrid, 3+ Days Onsite

Pay Rate: $72/hr W-2

Duration: 12 months

Employment Type: Contract

Work Authorization: U.S. Citizens or Green Card Holders ONLY – this is a firm requirement. Candidates requiring current or future visa sponsorship cannot be considered.

Role Overview

We are seeking a Senior Program Manager with strong cybersecurity experience to lead and coordinate Detection Engineering programs within a Security Operations Center (SOC) environment. This role will own the programmatic delivery of detection use cases from initial conception and requirements gathering through development, validation, production deployment, tuning, and continuous improvement.

A major focus of the position will be developing and scaling security monitoring and detection capabilities for AI systems, including threats such as prompt injection, model abuse, data exfiltration, and anomalous AI/ML pipeline activity.

The ideal candidate combines strong technical program management capabilities with a solid understanding of SOC operations, detection engineering, SIEM technologies, and cybersecurity threat detection.

Key Responsibilities

• Own the end-to-end Detection Engineering lifecycle, including use-case intake, requirements, prioritization, development, validation, deployment, and tuning.


• Maintain and prioritize a structured detection backlog aligned with SOC priorities and emerging threats.


• Establish program governance, delivery milestones, roadmaps, risk registers, and reporting.


• Drive development of detection use cases focused on AI systems and AI-related security threats.


• Partner with AI/ML engineering, data science, SOC, threat intelligence, cloud, and security engineering teams.


• Translate AI-specific threat models into actionable detection and monitoring requirements.


• Track detection maturity, coverage, effectiveness, and opportunities for continuous improvement.


• Lead cross-functional planning sessions, working groups, and stakeholder meetings.


• Manage dependencies and risks across multiple concurrent security workstreams.


• Implement scalable program-management frameworks and Detection Engineering processes.


• Support adoption of detection-as-code, use-case tiering, and MITRE ATT&CK coverage mapping.


• Establish and track KPIs/OKRs related to delivery velocity, detection quality, coverage, and SOC impact.


• Maintain documentation including use-case catalogs, RACIs, decision logs, delivery plans, and executive reporting.

Required Qualifications

• WORK AUTHORIZATION: Must be a U.S. Citizen or Green Card Holder. This is a non-negotiable requirement.


• 7+ years of program or project management experience.


• 3+ years working within or directly supporting cybersecurity, SOC, Security Operations, or Detection Engineering teams.


• Strong understanding of the Detection Engineering lifecycle, including detection use-case development, SIEM rule creation, validation, alert tuning, and continuous improvement.


• Experience managing complex, cross-functional technical/security programs.


• Familiarity with SIEM and security platforms such as Splunk, Microsoft Sentinel, Google Chronicle, and/or Elastic SIEM.


• Working knowledge of MITRE ATT&CK and its application to threat detection and coverage mapping.


• Familiarity with detection-as-code methodologies.


• Strong experience managing backlogs, roadmaps, dependencies, risks, milestones, and delivery metrics.


• Excellent stakeholder management and executive communication skills.


• Ability to work onsite in Irving, TX at least 3 days per week.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience supporting AI/ML security, GenAI security, or AI system monitoring initiatives.


• Understanding of AI-related threats including prompt injection, model abuse, data leakage/exfiltration, and anomalous AI pipeline activity.


• Experience partnering directly with Detection Engineers, Threat Intelligence teams, SOC analysts, Cloud Security, and Data Engineering teams.


• Experience building or scaling Detection Engineering programs within large enterprise environments.

Key Skills

Detection Engineering | SOC | Cybersecurity | Technical Program Management | AI Security | SIEM | Splunk | Microsoft Sentinel | Google Chronicle | Elastic SIEM | MITRE ATT&CK | Detection-as-Code | Threat Detection | Security Operations | GenAI Security