Senior Manager - Cyber Defense

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Description

Connecting People. Uniting the World. There’s never been a more exciting time to join United Airlines! As a global company that operates in hundreds of locations around the world — with millions of customers and tens of thousands of employees — we have a unique responsibility to uplift and provide opportunities in the places where we work, live and fly.

We’re on a path to becoming the best airline in aviation history. Join our Cybersecurity and Digital Risk (CDR) team to help lead the industry in cyber safety, security and resilience. United's CDR team plays a critical role in protecting our operations by enabling secure and resilient systems, managing threats and vulnerabilities, and ensuring swift response and recovery. Our mission is to seamlessly embed cybersecurity and digital risk management into every aspect of our business. We help drive progress and growth through trusted digital solutions, safeguarding assets and empowering our team, all while promoting a cyber-safe and secure environment that supports resilient airline operations.

United offers a competitive benefits package aimed at keeping you happy, healthy, and well-traveled. From employee-run "Business Resource Group" communities to world-class benefits like parental leave, 401(k), and privileges like space-available travel, United is truly a one-of-a-kind place to work. Are you ready to travel the world and help us keep our airline cyber safe? Apply today!

Job overview and responsibilities

The Senior Manager – Cyber Defense leads the execution of key operational and strategic priorities for United's Cybersecurity Operations Center in direct partnership with Cyber Defense leadership. This individual ensures operational alignment across Incident Response, Cyber Threat Intelligence, Threat Detection Engineering, and the broader Cybersecurity and Digital Risk organization, drawing on technical expertise and leadership experience to deliver measurable security outcomes. This role is responsible for scaling people, process, and AI-driven technology capabilities to enable United to detect, triage, and respond to threats with greater speed, consistency, and analyst precision.

• Own the performance of a 24/7 analyst organization — set the standard, hold the line, and build a team culture where accountability and continuous improvement are the expectation, not the exception
• Develop analysts and team leads through deliberate coaching, honest feedback, and stretch assignments — with measurable growth as the proof point; lead hiring to complete the CSOC build and retain talent by making this a team people want to stay on.
• Build and operationalize the processes, playbooks, and AI-assisted workflows that allow the CSOC to scale alert volume without scaling headcount proportionally
• Own the CSOC metrics framework — define and track MTTA, triage quality, false positive rates, AI agent performance, and analyst development KPIs — and use that data to drive decisions, not just report them
• Maximize the value of existing security investments before recommending new spend; identify capability gaps across people, process, and tooling and build a credible case for investment prioritization
• Represent United's CSOC in engagements with law enforcement, legal counsel, and cyber insurers during active incidents and program reviews — bringing operational clarity and defensible documentation to every external interaction

Qualifications

What’s needed to succeed (Minimum Qualifications):

• Bachelor's degree required
• 5+ years of work experience with 3 years in Cybersecurity disciplines such as Incident Response, CSOC, or Cyber Defense
• Operates with a high sense of urgency and sound judgment under pressure — able to rapidly assess ambiguous situations, cut through noise, and drive toward resolution whether the problem is a live incident, a failing AI agent, or a team performance issue
• Builds and sustains the operational cadence of a 24/7 CSOC — shift handoffs, triage reviews, AI performance checkpoints, and leadership syncs — ensuring the team maintains forward momentum without requiring constant escalation to the Director
• Drives cross-functional initiatives to completion in a complex, high-stakes environment — coordinating across Incident Response, Threat Detection Engineering, Cyber Threat Intelligence, and external partners without losing ownership or letting accountability diffuse
• Translates complex security and AI operational concepts for non-technical audiences — from explaining AI agent behavior to a legal team during an incident, to presenting CSOC performance metrics to executive leadership in terms that drive decisions
• Identifies trends in alert patterns, AI agent performance, and analyst behavior — and converts those observations into tactical recommendations and operational changes that measurably improve CSOC outcomes over time
• Builds trust across a wide stakeholder landscape — frontline analysts, senior executives, legal and compliance teams, and external partners — with the interpersonal range to lead a fatigued analyst through a difficult shift and brief a CISO in the same day
• Working knowledge of AI and machine learning concepts as applied to security operations — including how large language models, agentic workflows, and automated triage systems behave, fail, and improve; able to evaluate AI agent outputs critically, define performance acceptance criteria, and enforce human-in-the-loop governance standards that prevent over-reliance on automated decision-making
   

What will help you propel from the pack (Preferred Qualifications):

• Master's degree in a STEM field
• PMP, CISSP, CISM, CISA, GC**

The base pay range for this role is $140,600.00 to $183,108.00.

The base salary range/hourly rate listed is dependent on job-related, factors such as experience, education, and skills. This position is also eligible for bonus and/or long-term incentive compensation awards.

You may be eligible for the following competitive benefits: medical, dental, vision, life, accident & disability, parental leave, employee assistance program, commuter, paid holidays, paid time off, 401(k) and flight privileges.

United Airlines is an Equal Opportunity Employer. We recruit, employ, train, compensate, and promote without regard to race, color, religion, national origin, gender identity, sexual orientation, disability, age, veteran status, or any other protected category under applicable law. We provide reasonable accommodations for applicants and employees with disabilities. To request an accommodation, contact

JobAccommodations@united.com