Director – Head of Security Operations Center

Position :
Director – Head of Security Operations Center

Location :
Chennai

Key Competencies:

• Strategic Vision – Ability to align SOC service evolution with MSSP business objectives.
• Technical Skills – Deep understanding of modern detection and response tools, automation, and integration frameworks.
• Client Orientation – Skilled in stakeholder engagement, reporting, and service quality management.
• Operational Excellence – Expertise in building scalable 24x7 operations with consistent quality.
• Leadership – Strong people management, mentoring, and cross-team collaboration abilities.
• Innovation – Aptitude for evaluating and operationalizing emerging SOC technologies.
• Deep understanding of modern detection and response tools, automation, and integration frameworks.
• Communication – Ability to present complex technical insights to executives and clients clearly and effectively.
• Responsible for driving execution of daily, weekly, and monthly metrics for statistical threats and KPIs.
• Coordinate with global stakeholders along with the Senior management during contingency scenarios/ high severity incidents to ensure responsive actions are communicated in timely manner.

Profile Description:

• 15+ years of experience in cybersecurity operations, with at least 5 years in SOC or MSSP leadership.
• Proven experience managing multi-tenant SOC environments with diverse customer infrastructures.
• Hands-on expertise in:
• • Splunk Enterprise Security (use case design, data onboarding, SPL optimization).
• • Palo Alto Cortex XSOAR (playbook automation, integration management, case handling).
• • Google SecOps (Chronicle + SOAR) (rule development, analytics, log pipelines).
• Strong understanding of SIEM/SOAR architectures, EDR, NDR, cloud telemetry, and threat intel integration.
• Experience defining and managing SOC SLAs, client KPIs, and service delivery metrics.

Key Responsibilities:

Leadership and Operations Management

• Lead and manage SOC functions comprising Detection, Incident Response, and SOC Engineering teams across multiple shifts and geographies.
• Define and enforce SOC service delivery models, operating procedures, and SLAs aligned with client contracts.
• Oversee day-to-day SOC operations for multiple customers with varying environments (on-prem, cloud, hybrid).
• Ensure effective handover, escalation, and quality assurance across all shifts.
• Drive KPIs for detection coverage, mean time to detect/respond (MTTD/MTTR), and client satisfaction.

Incident Response and Threat Management

• Oversee the end-to-end incident lifecycle: detection, triage, containment, eradication, and recovery.
• Establish and maintain client-specific runbooks, escalation matrices, and response playbooks.
• Guide major incident response efforts and lead investigations for high-severity or high-impact events.
• Ensure timely communication and coordination with client security teams during incidents.

Client Engagement and Risk Reporting

• Serve as the primary SOC interface for strategic customer engagements.
• Prepare and deliver executive risk reports, incident summaries, and detection coverage dashboards to client management teams.
• Translate complex technical risks into actionable business insights for diverse client audiences.

Technology and Engineering Excellence

• Provide technical direction for SIEM/SOAR/Threat Intelligence stack optimization and automation.
• Lead the design and maintenance of multi-tenant architectures ensuring data segregation, scalability, and compliance.
• Direct the automation of repetitive analyst tasks through playbooks and integrations in Cortex XSOAR.
• Evaluate and implement emerging technologies in AI-driven detection, UEBA, threat intelligence correlation, and SOAR orchestration.
• Maintain governance for log ingestion, parser accuracy, and retention policies across client environments.

Innovation and Technology Evaluation

• Continuously assess and pilot next-generation tools in SIEM, SOAR, Threat Intel, and AI/ML-based detection.
• Build business cases and lead proofs of concept (POCs) for promising platforms and integrations.
• Foster a culture of experimentation, automation, and measurable improvement within the SOC.