Senior Security Operations Engineer / Lead

Elan Partners; United States; On-site; USD 150,000 - 190,000; Full time

Job summary

Elan Partners seeks a Senior Security Operations Engineer/Lead for an onsite role in the Dallas–Fort Worth area. The role balances hands-on security engineering (roughly 50%) with team leadership, building and guiding a small SOC and maturing security capabilities across cloud, IAM, and vulnerability management.

U.S. citizenship is required for federal/regulatory environments; the position offers growth, collaboration with global security resources, and a pathway to broader leadership as the

Qualifications

• 5+ years in Security Operations / Security Engineering.
• Experience leading or mentoring security professionals.
• Hands-on in cloud security, IAM, and incident response.
• Familiarity with CSPM tools and vulnerability management.

Responsibilities

• Lead a small Security Operations team (approx. 4 people) and mentor staff.
• Own incident response, cloud security, vulnerability management, and detection.
• Coordinate cross-team remediation with engineering and product teams.
• Develop processes, standards, and KPIs for SecOps activities.
• Engage with global security resources to scale the function.

Job description

Senior Security Operations Engineer / Lead – DFW (Onsite)

Direct Hire Opportunity

No Sponsorship

Onsite

We're partnering with a rapidly growing, well-funded technology company to hire a Senior Security Operations Engineer / Lead who will play a key role in building and leading its U.S. Security Operations function. This is an excellent opportunity for a senior security professional who still enjoys being hands-on technically, but is ready for significantly more ownership and leadership. Initially, the role will be approximately 50% hands-on security engineering and 50% team leadership, with responsibility for a small existing Security Operations team. As the organization continues to grow, this individual will help build and develop additional security resources across the U.S. and internationally, with the position evolving toward greater leadership responsibility over time. This is not a traditional SOC monitoring role. You'll have direct ownership across incident response, cloud security, vulnerability management, and security operations while helping shape how the function scales.

Requirements

• 5+ years of progressive Security Operations / Security Engineering experience, with enough depth to independently handle complex technical security issues.
• Strong hands-on expertise in at least two of the following, with exposure across all three preferred:
• Cloud Security / CSPM
• Vulnerability Management
• Previous experience leading, mentoring or managing security professionals, with an interest in building and developing a larger team.
• Proven ability to personally lead incident triage, containment, and investigation under pressure.
• Strong understanding of the differences between securing cloud and traditional on-premises infrastructure.
• Hands-on AWS security experience, ideally including technologies such as IAM, EC2, EKS, S3, CloudTrail and GuardDuty.
• Experience identifying and remediating cloud IAM risks, excessive permissions, configuration issues, and other cloud exposures.
• Hands-on experience with CSPM platforms; Wiz is preferred.
• Strong vulnerability-management experience beyond scanning and reporting — including risk prioritization, remediation coordination, and validation through closure.
• Experience partnering directly with Engineering teams to resolve security issues.
• Ability to explain complex technical findings in terms of risk and business impact to both technical and senior stakeholders.
• Scripting or automation experience using Python, Bash or similar technologies is a plus.
• Experience with FedRAMP, GovCloud, NIST 800-53, POA&M management or other highly regulated environments is highly desirable.
• U.S. citizenship is required due to the regulated environments supported by this position.

Responsibilities

Lead & Build

• Lead, mentor and develop an existing team of approximately four Security Operations professionals.
• Establish priorities, processes, standards and accountability across day-to-day SecOps activities.
• Help build and scale the Security Operations organization as the company continues to grow.
• Partner closely with international security resources, with the opportunity to assume broader leadership responsibility across the global function.
• Provide technical guidance while remaining close enough to the work to step into complex incidents and security issues personally.
• Partner with Security, Engineering and business leadership on security priorities, tooling and risk-reduction initiatives.
• Lead security incidents during U.S. business hours from initial triage through containment, investigation, remediation and closure.
• Coordinate technical response across Security, Engineering and other stakeholders.
• Develop clear incident timelines, root-cause findings and post-incident reviews.
• Identify lessons learned and translate them into stronger detections, controls and processes.
• Identify and remediate security risks across AWS and multi-cloud environments, including GCP and Azure.
• Work hands-on with cloud security issues involving IAM, permissions, misconfigurations, exposure and security controls.
• Manage and improve cloud security posture using CSPM tooling; Wiz experience is highly desirable.
• Partner directly with engineering teams to remediate findings rather than simply reporting them.
• Contribute to cloud detection engineering and longer-term security improvements.

Vulnerability Management

• Own vulnerability management across web applications, infrastructure and containerized environments.
• Evaluate and prioritize vulnerabilities based on exploitability, exposure and actual business risk.
• Drive remediation with engineering and infrastructure teams through validation and closure.
• Improve vulnerability-management processes, reporting and accountability.

Regulated / Government Cloud Security

• Support security operations within regulated cloud environments.
• Drive continuous-monitoring activities, evidence collection, remediation tracking and audit readiness.
• Support POA&M management and security controls aligned with NIST 800-53.
• Partner with internal teams to maintain security and compliance requirements within GovCloud environments.

Why Consider This Opportunity?

Build the Function - Don't Just Join It

You'll inherit an existing team while helping determine how Security Operations evolves as the organization grows. This is an opportunity to build people, processes and capabilities, rather than simply operate within a mature, fixed structure.

Stay Technical While Moving Toward Leadership

Initially, expect roughly a 50/50 balance between hands-on security work and leadership. As the team grows, the position is expected to evolve toward approximately 80% leadership and 20% technical involvement.

It's an attractive next step for someone who isn't ready to give up the technical side of security but wants a clear path toward broader organizational leadership.

Broad Security Ownership

Rather than specializing in one narrow area, you'll work across:

• Incident Response
• Cloud Security
• Vulnerability Management
• Detection
• Security Engineering
• Regulated Cloud Environments

You'll join a well-funded, rapidly growing technology organization with a highly technical, security-focused product and the opportunity to work alongside experienced engineering and security professionals.

The company offers competitive compensation, strong benefits, and meaningful long-term growth opportunity.

Location

This is an onsite position in the North Dallas area.

Because of the collaborative and leadership nature of the role, we're primarily targeting experienced security professionals who are already located in the Dallas-Fort Worth market and comfortable working onsite.

U.S. Citizenship/Permanent Residency Requirement

Due to federal government contract requirements applicable to this position, candidates must be either U.S. citizens or lawful permanent residents (Green Card holders). This requirement applies to personnel supporting the applicable FedRAMP - authorized environment and/or federal government customer.