Senior Program Manager

The consultant will serve as the connective tissue across cross-functional teams spanning detection engineers, threat intelligence analysts, data engineers, platform teams, and business stakeholders driving structured programme delivery from detection conception through to production deployment and continuous improvement. This role requires a senior Program Manager with deep experience leading detection engineering lifecycle management for Security Operations Center (SOC) environments, with a specific focus on enabling and scaling detection use cases for monitoring AI systems.

Role: Senior Program Manager
Location: 3+ Days onsite Irving, TX (DFW)
Duration: 12 Months

Job Description:
This role requires a senior Program Manager with deep experience leading detection engineering lifecycle management for Security Operations Center (SOC) environments, with a specific focus on enabling and scaling detection use cases for monitoring AI systems. The consultant will serve as the connective tissue across cross-functional teams spanning detection engineers, threat intelligence analysts, data engineers, platform teams, and business stakeholders driving structured programme delivery from detection conception through to production deployment and continuous improvement.

Key Responsibilities:


Detection Engineering Programme Management:

• Own and manage the end-to-end detection engineering lifecycle from use case ideation, requirements gathering, and prioritization through to development, validation, deployment, and tuning.
• Maintain and manage a structured detection use case backlog, ensuring alignment with SOC operational priorities and emerging threat landscapes.
• Define and enforce programme governance standards, including intake processes, milestone tracking, and delivery cadences across detection engineering workstreams.
• Produce and communicate programme status reports, risk registers, and delivery roadmaps for senior stakeholders and leadership.

AI System Monitoring Use Cases:

• Drive the identification, scoping, and delivery of detection use cases specifically targeting AI system behaviours, including model abuse, prompt injection, data exfiltration via AI interfaces, and anomalous AI pipeline activity.
• Collaborate with AI/ML engineering, data science, and security teams to translate AI-specific threat models into actionable detection requirements.
• Track the maturity and coverage of AI-focused detections, ensuring continuous improvement against evolving AI threat vectors.

Cross-Functional Stakeholder Management:

• Act as the primary programme interface between detection engineering teams, SOC operations, threat intelligence, data platform, cloud engineering, and business stakeholders.
• Facilitate and lead cross-functional planning sessions, working groups, and steering committees to align priorities and resolve blockers.
• Manage dependencies, risks, and interdependencies across multiple concurrent detection engineering workstreams and teams.
• Build and maintain strong stakeholder relationships to ensure programme transparency, buy-in, and accountability.

Process & Operational Excellence:

• Design and implement scalable programme management frameworks, workflows, and tooling to support detection engineering at enterprise scale.
• Drive adoption of structured detection engineering methodologies (e.g., detection-as-code, use case tiering, coverage mapping to MITRE ATT&CK).
• Establish and track KPIs and OKRs for detection engineering programme health, delivery velocity, and SOC impact.
• Continuously identify and implement process improvements to reduce cycle time and improve detection quality.

Documentation & Reporting:

• Maintain comprehensive programme documentation including use case catalogues, decision logs, RACI matrices, and delivery plans.
• Develop executive-level reporting and narrative updates to communicate programme progress, risks, and strategic value.

Required Skills & Experience

• Experience: 7+ years in programme or project management, with at least 3+ years embedded within or directly supporting cybersecurity, SOC, or detection engineering functions.

Detection Engineering Lifecycle:

• Strong understanding of the detection engineering lifecycle, including use case development, SIEM rule authoring, alert tuning, and detection validation.
• Familiarity with detection-as-code practices and platforms (e.g., Splunk, Microsoft Sentinel, Chronicle, Elastic SIEM).
• Working knowledge of MITRE ATT&CK framework and its application to detection com