Senior Cybersecurity Operations Engineer

Job Title: Senior Cybersecurity Operations Engineer

The National Indian Gaming Commission (NIGC) is seeking a highly skilled Senior Cybersecurity Operations Engineer to support and enhance its cybersecurity operations. This role requires a seasoned professional capable of operating with minimal supervision while ensuring the security, integrity, and resilience of NIs information systems. The ideal candidate will bring deep expertise in federal cybersecurity standards, threat detection, incident response, and security engineering.

Key Responsibilities

• Conduct ongoing security assessments of systems and networks in alignment with federal standards and frameworks including NIST, FISMA, CISA, and other applicable directives; recommend and implement corrective actions.
• Perform systems engineering, integration, and maintenance activities in accordance with established IT and security standards.
• Design, implement, and troubleshoot security solutions across networking technologies, including LAN, wireless environments, and cloud platforms such as Microsoft Azure.
• Evaluate and enhance NIs cybersecurity operations strategy, aligning capabilities with industry best practices.
• Configure, manage, and optimize cybersecurity tools including SIEM, Syslog, Network Detection and Response (NDR), Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR), firewalls, Microsoft 365 security solutions, Defender for Cloud, and Continuous Diagnostics and Mitigation (CDM) tools.
• Collaborate with the Chief Information Security Officer (CISO) and Privacy Officer to develop and implement cybersecurity and privacy strategies, objectives, and performance measures.
• Partner with IT and application teams to ensure security requirements are integrated into all systems and services.
• Maintain situational awareness of emerging threats and vulnerabilities; monitor systems for suspicious activity and conduct proactive threat hunting using aggregated logs and telemetry.
• Develop and implement Security Orchestration, Automation, and Response (SOAR) capabilities to improve operational efficiency.
• Support continuous monitoring initiatives to assess the effectiveness of security controls and ensure system confidentiality, integrity, and availability.
• Design and implement detection and response policies to enhance automation and threat mitigation.
• Lead and execute incident response activities in accordance with NIs incident response plan, including containment, eradication, and recovery.
• Develop and refine incident handling procedures and playbooks.
• Ensure proper logging, data retention, and evidence collection to support investigations and security awareness.
• Collect and analyze cybersecurity performance metrics; produce reports on threat posture and risk to inform leadership decision-making.
• Develop, maintain, and update comprehensive security operations documentation, including standard operating procedures (SOPs).

Required Qualifications

• Bachelor s degree in Cybersecurity, Information Technology, Computer Science, or related field (or equivalent experience).
• Extensive experience in cybersecurity operations, security engineering, or related roles in federal or highly regulated environments.
• Strong knowledge of NIST frameworks, FISMA compliance, CISA guidelines, and federal cybersecurity directives.
• Hands-on experience with SIEM, EDR, NDR, firewalls, and cloud security tools (especially Microsoft security stack).
• Proficiency in networking technologies including LAN, wireless, and cloud-based infrastructure (Azure preferred).
• Demonstrated experience in incident response, threat hunting, and continuous monitoring practices.
• Familiarity with security automation and orchestration tools (SOAR).
• Strong analytical, problem-solving, and communication skills