SOC Defense Engineer & Threat Hunting SME

Mitre Corporation; Huntsville (AL); On-site; USD 159,000 - 238,000; Full time

Job summary

MITRE Corporation in Huntsville, AL, seeks cybersecurity professionals for Defensive Cyber Operations. You will collaborate with engineers on threat hunting, detection engineering, and AI-enhanced SOC initiatives for government sponsors.

The role emphasizes delivering training content, refining detections, and applying ATT&CK to guide defenses. On-site presence 3 days/week and ability to travel up to 25% are required.

Qualifications

• Minimum 8 years of related experience with a Bachelor's; or 6 years with a Master; or PhD with 3 years; plus 3 years on-site operational experience.
• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Cybersecurity, Data Science, Applied Mathematics, Statistics, or related field.
• Experience leveraging common SOC tools to defend an enterprise.
• Experience conducting proactive cyber threat hunting across enterprise environments.
• Experience developing technical training content, curriculum, or other learning materials for cybersecurity audiences.
• Ability and willingness to travel up to 25% (including international travel)

Responsibilities

• Provide SME guidance to government sponsors on enterprise SOCs, governance, and process improvement.
• Translate complex cybersecurity concepts into practical training tailored to sponsor networks and resources.
• Develop hands-on training scenarios and exercises reflecting real-world defensive cyber challenges.
• Apply MITRE ATT&CK to guide threat hunting and align defenses with TTPs.
• Design, develop, and refine detections, analytics, and dashboards in SIEM platforms.
• Develop and improve threat hunting methodologies to identify adversary activity.
• Research AI techniques (ML, deep learning, generative AI, reinforcement learning) for SOC use in cost-effective ways.
• Assess SOC capabilities, identify gaps, and propose sponsor-aligned improvements.
• Validate detections and workflows through testing and exercises to reduce false positives.

Skills

Operational experience

Threat hunting

Technical writing

Presentations

Training content development

Travel willingness

Education

Bachelor's degree in CS/Cybersecurity/Data Science/Applied Math/Statistics

Tools

Splunk

Elastic/ELK

Job description

MITRE Corporation in Huntsville, AL, seeks cybersecurity professionals for Defensive Cyber Operations. You will collaborate with engineers on threat hunting, detection engineering, and AI-enhanced SOC initiatives for government sponsors.

The role emphasizes delivering training content, refining detections, and applying ATT&CK to guide defenses. On-site presence 3 days/week and ability to travel up to 25% are required.