Lead Detection & Response Analyst

The Lead Detection and Response Analyst on Rapid7's Managed Detection and Response (MDR) team plays a pivotal role in driving innovation, enabling analyst growth, and improving operational processes across the SOC. This hands-on role combines expert-level DFIR skills with leadership in mentoring, incident response, service enablement, and cross-functional collaboration to enhance threat detection and response capabilities. Success is defined by proactive problem-solving, technical leadership, and meaningful contributions to team development and customer impact.
About the team
Rapid7's Managed Detection and Response (MDR) team is built from the ground up to bring motivated and passionate security talent face to face with emerging threats, practical challenges, and evil at scale. Our MDR service uses an impact-driven mindset to focus efforts on effective solutions, encouraging personal and technical innovation within the SOC. MDR provides 24/7/365 monitoring, threat hunting, incident response, and more with a focus on endpoint detection and behavioral intelligence.
About the role
The Rapid7 Lead Analyst position has 5 primary focus areas. Innovation, education, escalation, service enablement, and process improvement. This role requires practitioners who are experts in various areas of technology, tooling, application of cybersecurity concepts, and hands on DFIR. Moose in this role are expected to proactively identify areas of improvement and involvement and lean on their vast experience to execute on those areas autonomously.

• Focus areas: innovation, education, escalation, service enablement, and process improvement
• Requires deep expertise in technology, tooling, DFIR, and cybersecurity concepts
• Mentors analysts through investigation reviews and feedback
• Translates individual mentoring into team-wide training and documentation
• Supports complex investigations and determines root causes
• Serves as a technical escalation point for critical threats
• Identifies and leads training or process improvements based on field experience
• Collaborates cross-functionally and with leadership to prioritize impactful work

The skills and qualities you'll bring include:

• Extensive hands-on experience in DFIR (Digital Forensics & Incident Response) with deep technical expertise.
• Strong mentoring and coaching skills to guide and develop junior analysts.
• Proven ability to identify and drive innovation and process improvements across the SOC.
• Expertise in cybersecurity tools, endpoint detection, behavioral analytics, and threat intelligence.
• Demonstrated experience acting as an escalation point during complex or widespread threats.
• Ability to lead technical initiatives and develop training content and documentation.
• Excellent communication skills for presenting findings and creating enablement content.
• Self-driven and impact-focused, able to autonomously scope and lead projects.
• Active participation in the security community through blogs, webinars, or ETRs.
• Core Value Embodiment: Embody our core values to foster a culture of excellence that drives meaningful impact and collective success

We know that the best ideas and solutions come from multi-dimensional teams. That's because these teams reflect a variety of backgrounds and professional experiences. If you are excited about this role and feel your experience can make an impact, please don't be shy - apply today.
About Rapid7
At Rapid7, our vision is to create a secure digital world for our customers, our industry, and our communities. We do this by harnessing our collective expertise and passion to challenge what's possible and drive extraordinary impact. We're building a dynamic and collaborative workplace where new ideas are welcome.
Protecting 11,000+ customers against bad actors and threats means we're continuing to push the envelope - just like we've been doing for the past 20 years. If you're ready to solve some of the toughest challenges in cybersecurity, we're ready to help you take command of your career. Join us.
#LI-SIM