Incident Response Manager, Contract

66degrees is a leading consulting and professional services company specializing in developing AI-focused, data-led solutions leveraging the latest advancements in cloud technology. With our unmatched engineering capabilities and vast industry experience, we help the world's leading brands transform their business challenges into opportunities and shape the future of work.

At 66degrees, we believe in embracing the challenge and winning together. These values not only guide us in achieving our goals as a company but also for our people. We are dedicated to creating a significant impact for our employees by fostering a culture that sparks innovation and supports professional and personal growth along the way. 

We are seeking a highly motivated and skilled Incident Response Manager to lead our client's security operations. In this dual role, you will act as both a "builder" and a "maintainer," responsible for scaling a growing security team from the ground up while simultaneously maintaining and maturing existing incident response workflows. You will initially manage a dedicated team of 5 security professionals, with strategic plans to expand the headcount further by the end of the year.

Duration: 12 months 

Location: Chicago, U.S.

Work Mode: Hybrid

Employment Type: Contract

Notice Period: Immediate Joiners

Shift/Schedule: 8:00 AM to 5:00 PM Central TZ. 

• Leadership & Team Scaling (The Builder): Provide direct day-to-day management to an initial team of 5 security analysts. Participate heavily in strategic workforce planning to scale and extend the team by the End of Year (EOY).
• Incident Response & Workflows (The Maintainer): Oversee and continuously optimize end-to-end incident response workflows. Act as the escalation point for critical security incidents, ensuring rapid containment and remediation.
• Threat Detection & Response: Leverage specialized expertise to hunt for, detect, and neutralize sophisticated cyber threats across the enterprise environment.
• Security Infrastructure Management: Monitor and maintain central network security defenses, including firewall management, configuration tracking, and rule optimization.

• Experience: Minimum of 3+ years of professional leadership/management experience within a Security Operations Center (SOC) or Incident Response team.
• Threat Detection Expertise: Specialized, hands-on experience in modern threat detection strategies, malware analysis, and adversarial tactics.
• EDR Tools: Proven proficiency with Enterprise Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) platforms (e.g., CrowdStrike, Defender for Endpoint, SentinelOne) to hunt and isolate endpoint threats.
• SIEM Tools: Deep understanding of Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) architectures for log analysis, correlation rule building, and alert optimization.
• Network Security: Practical experience managing network architecture security defenses, with specific hands-on capabilities in firewall management and network protocols.

• Experience working within the Insurance or Financial Services industry, navigating specific regulatory frameworks and data privacy compliances.
• Relevant industry certifications (e.g., GCIH, CISSP, GCFA, or CISM).

66degrees is an Equal Opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to actual or perceived race, color, religion, sex, gender, gender identity, national origin, age, weight, height, marital status, sexual orientation, veteran status, disability status or other legally protected class.