Director – Security Operations Center (SOC) - UAE National

Job Description

We are seeking an experienced and strategic Director of Security Operations Center (SOC) to lead and manage our Managed Security Services (MSSP) cyber defense operations. The role is responsible for overseeing 24x7 SOC operations, incident response activities, threat intelligence capabilities and overall cyber defense services across both internal and customer environments.

The Director of SOC will drive operational excellence, enhance detection and response capabilities, improve MSSP service delivery, and strengthen the organization's overall cyber defense posture. The role requires strong leadership, technical expertise, customer engagement skills and experience managing large-scale security operations within enterprise and cloud environments.

Responsibilities:

• Define and drive the overall SOC and cyber defense strategy aligned with organizational and MSSP business objectives.
• Lead the maturity improvement of SOC operations, incident response capabilities, threat intelligence integration, and security monitoring services.
• Develop long-term roadmaps for SOC technologies, automation, threat detection, and cyber resilience.
• Ensure alignment with industry frameworks and best practices such as MITRE ATT&CK, NIST, ISO 27001, and SOC standards.
• Provide strategic direction for proactive threat hunting, threat intelligence operationalization and cyber defense enhancements.
• Support executive management with strategic cybersecurity insights, risk visibility, and operational reporting.
• Drive continuous improvement initiatives to strengthen MSSP operational capabilities and customer service quality.
• Oversee 24x7 SOC operations across internal and customer environments.
• Lead incident response activities including containment, eradication, recovery, escalation handling, and post-incident reviews.
• Manage threat intelligence activities including IOC management, threat actor tracking, threat advisories, and intelligence integration into SOC operations.
• Ensure optimization and tuning of SIEM, SOAR, EDR/XDR, NDR, and related security platforms.
• Oversee threat hunting activities and advanced detection use case development.
• Develop and maintain SOC procedures, escalation matrices, playbooks, and operational frameworks.
• Coordinate with SOC Engineering, Security Architecture, and other teams to enhance operational effectiveness.
• Ensure SLA/KPI compliance for MSSP monitoring and security services.
• Monitor SOC operational performance and service delivery quality.
• Ensure proper alert management, triage, escalation, and incident handling processes are maintained.
• Conduct operational reviews and implement corrective actions where necessary.
• Ensure continuous monitoring coverage across customer and internal environments.
• Oversee cyber incident coordination with customers, vendors, and internal stakeholders.
• Manage operational readiness, shift coverage, escalation handling, and resource utilization.
• Support audits, compliance activities, customer reviews, and operational reporting requirements.
• Drive operational automation and efficiency improvements within the SOC environment.

Job specific skills:

• Bachelor's degree in Cybersecurity, Information Security, Computer Science, or related field.
• Minimum 10+ years of cybersecurity experience with at least 5 years in SOC leadership roles.
• Strong experience in MSSP or large-scale multi-tenant security operations environments.
• Proven experience managing SOC operations, cyber incidents, threat intelligence, and security monitoring functions.
• Strong understanding of modern cyber threats, attack methodologies, threat actors, and incident handling processes.
• Experience managing enterprise and cloud security monitoring environments.
• Strong leadership, communication, stakeholder management, and decision-making skills.