Cyber Defence Center Manager

About the role

Paymera is building an in‑house Security Operations Center (SOC) to protect its payment ecosystem. The Cyber Defence Center Manager will design, staff and lead this SOC, driving threat monitoring, detection engineering, threat hunting and end‑to‑end incident response.

Key responsibilities

• Build, staff and lead the SOC, defining a shift model and scaling coverage from extended‑hours to 24/7/365.
• Act as incident commander for security events, owning the response lifecycle, playbooks and post‑incident reviews.
• Define and manage the detection technology stack (SIEM, SOAR, EDR/XDR, Threat Intelligence Platform) in partnership with the detection engineer.
• Set SOC SLAs and metrics (MTTD, MTTR, coverage) and report the security posture to the CISO.
• Lead detection‑engineering roadmap, use‑case development and proactive threat‑hunting programs.
• Coordinate the vulnerability‑management program across the environment.
• Manage DFIR retainer and offensive‑security vendors for surge and assurance activities.
• Ensure logging, monitoring and alerting meet compliance evidence requirements.
• Recruit, mentor and develop SOC staff, creating clear L1→L2→L3 career paths and supporting shift‑work wellbeing.

Required profile

• 8–12 years of experience in security operations and incident response, including SOC leadership or build experience.
• Hands‑on experience running on‑premise SIEM/SOAR and detection‑engineering capabilities.
• Proven incident‑command experience for significant security incidents.
• Experience in financial services, payments or other high‑assurance environments (preferred).
• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Information Systems or equivalent.
• Required certifications: one or more of GCIH, GCIA, GMON, CISM, CISSP.
• Preferred certifications: GNFA, GCFA, GSOM, MITRE ATT&CK‑based credentials.

Required skills

• SIEM platforms (e.g., Splunk, QRadar, Elastic, Wazuh).
• SOAR and automation tools.
• EDR/XDR and NDR solutions.
• MITRE ATT&CK‑driven detection engineering.
• Incident response and digital forensics fundamentals.
• Threat hunting and cyber‑threat intelligence.
• Vulnerability management.