Security Operations Center (SOC) Manager
- Little Rock, AR
- Permanent
- Full-time
The Security Operations Center (SOC) Manager leads the SOC with a dual focus: delivering operational excellence and ensuring an exceptional customer experience. This role is responsible for managing and developing a high-performing team of cybersecurity professionals—analysts, detection engineers, threat hunters, and incident responders—while also acting as a key customer-facing leader for security operations.The SOC Manager ensures timely, accurate, and effective threat detection and response services for clients across diverse industries. They are accountable for team performance, client satisfaction, and the retention of managed services clients by building trust, transparency, and consistent communication.RESPONSIBILITIES
Leadership & People Management
- Supervise, mentor, and coach a team of SOC personnel, providing guidance, development plans, and regular performance feedback.
- Foster a culture of continuous improvement, accountability, and collaboration across shifts and functions.
- Oversee 24/7 coverage, including shift scheduling, escalations, and resource management to ensure uninterrupted support.
- Champion career progression, certifications, and technical development to reduce turnover and promote internal growth.
- Communicate effectively with clients during and after security incidents, delivering clear explanations, root cause analyses, and remediation guidance.
- Build and maintain trusted relationships with clients by demonstrating SOC performance, responsiveness, and technical credibility.
- Identify customer pain points or operational gaps and proactively work with internal teams to enhance service delivery.
- Oversee the identification, investigation, escalation, and resolution of security incidents with timely internal and external coordination.
- Ensure consistent use of playbooks and runbooks, driving response maturity and measurable improvements in response time and accuracy.
- Lead post-incident review sessions (PIRs) with clients and internal teams to document lessons learned and drive preventive actions.
- Define, track, and report on key performance indicators (KPIs) and service level agreements (SLAs) to assess team and service effectiveness.
- Implement quality assurance processes to evaluate ticket handling, escalation accuracy, and incident response fidelity.
- Drive operational improvements through the implementation of automation, integration of new detection technologies, and continuous runbook enhancement.
- Contribute to process improvement with onboarding and offboarding of customer environments, ensuring all tools, detections, and workflows are aligned to SOC standards.
- Continuously assess and improve SOC processes in alignment with threat landscape changes, compliance requirements, and customer expectations.
- Collaborate with customer to align detection engineering, threat intelligence, and response playbooks to customer-specific needs.
- 4+ years of SOC experience, including hands-on incident response and threat detection.
- 2+ years of experience managing SOC teams in a customer-facing or MSSP setting.
- Strong interpersonal, leadership, and customer relationship skills.
- Ability to manage multiple client expectations, projects, and priorities in a high-tempo environment.
- Strong communication skills for both technical and executive audiences.
- Must possess or obtain SC-200 or MS-100 within the first year of employment.
- Relevant certifications (e.g., GCIH, GCFE, GSOC, CSA, MS SC-200/SC-100, CEH, OSCP, GPEN).
- Experience with Microsoft Defender suite and Microsoft Sentinel.
- Bachelor’s degree in Cybersecurity, Computer Science, or a related field.
- Background in Managed Security Services or consulting.
We are seeking highly motivated individuals who have the willingness and ability to demonstrate Ascend core values:
- Committed to Client Success: Our actions and our words always align with the best interest of the client.
- One Team: We work collaboratively to overcome challenges with humility and respect and do what it takes to find innovative solutions.
- Integrity: We are unquestionably committed to doing the right thing even when it is hard.
- Accountability: We hold ourselves and each other accountable for keeping our commitments to our clients, our communities, and one another.
- Transparency: We create open lines of communication with each other and our clients, fostering relationships founded on candor and trust.
Must be able to sit, stand, and bend for the duration of shift. The position is mainly sitting, with occasional lifting up to 50 lbs, such as laptop, server equipment, and, driving to the work site to meet with client(s).Powered by JazzHR