Senior Security Operations Analyst (NIGC)

Overview

As a Senior Security Operations Analyst, you’ll serve as a hands-on, motivated member of the security team, executing day-to-day SOC activities at the National Indian Gaming Commission (NIGC). The selected candidate must have strong core skills, genuine drive, and the right attitude toward hands-on execution, not just oversight or team leadership experience. Must be able to obtain a Public Trust Security Clearance.

Responsibilities

• Monitor, triage, and investigate security alerts across SIEM and endpoint detection platforms.
• Perform hands-on incident response: containment, eradication, and recovery for active security events.
• Conduct log analysis and correlation to identify indicators of compromise and support ongoing investigations.
• Support vulnerability management: scanning, prioritization, and remediation coordination.
• Assist with Azure-native security monitoring and investigation, including Entra ID sign-in analysis, conditional access review, and Microsoft Defender/Sentinel alerting where applicable.
• Perform all security analysis activities according to established standards.
• Maintain threat awareness and monitor NIGC information systems for exploits and any suspicious activities; analyze aggregated logs and reports from security tools.
• Develop a daily security analysis and reporting checklist and execute activities identified in the checklist.
• Evaluate effectiveness of security analysis activities compared to best practices and recommend improvements.
• Adhere to Continuous Monitoring practices to evaluate the effectiveness of implemented security controls and execute proactive threat hunting activities to ensure confidentiality, integrity, and availability of NIGC information systems.
• Develop detection and response configuration policies to increase automation and alerting.
• Develop Incident handling procedures.
• Execute Incident Response activities to include all associated actions according to the NIGC incident response plan.
• Validate that sufficient and relevant information is captured and retained from security tools to support actionable security awareness and incident investigations.
• Collect security operations performance and NIGC security posture management metrics and prepare NIGC threat reports to inform risk management decisions.
• Document incidents and maintain SOC operational procedures aligned with FISMA and STIG requirements.
• Work cohesively with the Cybersecurity Engineer and IT Systems Engineer to maintain unified security posture.

Required Qualifications

• Minimum 6 years of experience operating specifically at a senior level — not simply total years in IT or cybersecurity, but demonstrated senior-level ownership and independent execution.
• Genuine, hands-on Microsoft Azure experience is required. This means direct, personal configuration and administration experience — not familiarity from a distance. Candidates must be able to speak in specific technical detail about environments supported, actions personally taken, and outcomes achieved.
• Ability to discuss technical work in depth during a live technical interview — candidates should expect to be asked to walk through specific projects, tools, and decisions, not just list skills.
• Active Public Trust clearance strongly preferred; must be able to pass a new background investigation without issue.
• Must be a hands-on engineer/analyst ready to absorb existing tools and refine policy with minimal ramp-up — this is not a purely oversight, governance, or management-level role.
• Demonstrated hands-on SOC experience — real-time monitoring, triage, and incident response, not solely leadership or program-management experience.
• Comfort executing day-to-day tasks personally, not only directing others.

Preferred Qualifications

• Bachelor Degree in Information Technology is desired.
• Relevant certifications such as CySA+, GCIH, or equivalent.
• Experience with FISMA and STIG-aligned SOC operations in a federal environment.

Pay: From $99,900.00 per year

Benefits:

• 401(k)
• 401(k) matching
• Dental insurance
• Life insurance
• Paid time off
• Retirement plan
• Tuition reimbursement

Work Location: In person