The Role
The Senior Director of Threat Operations will lead the global strategy and execution of Managed Detection and Response while driving organizational performance and customer outcomes across a 24x7 global capability.
Summary Generated by Built In
About Us
Sophos is a cybersecurity leader defending 600,000 organizations globally with an AI-driven platform and expert-led services. Sophos meets organizations wherever they are in their security maturity and grows with them to defeat cyberattacks. Its solutions combine machine learning, automation, and real-time threat intelligence with frontline human expertise from Sophos X-Ops to deliver advanced, 24/7 threat monitoring, detection, and response.
Sophos offers industry-leading managed detection and response (MDR) alongside a comprehensive portfolio of cybersecurity technologies — including endpoint, network, email, and cloud security, extended detection and response (XDR), identity threat detection and response (ITDR), and next-gen SIEM. Together with expert advisory services, these capabilities help organizations proactively reduce risk and respond faster, with the visibility and scalability needed to stay ahead of evolving threats.
Sophos goes to market with a global partner ecosystem, including Managed Service Providers (MSPs), Managed Security Service Providers (MSSPs), resellers and distributors, marketplace integrations, and cyber risk partners, giving organizations the flexibility to choose trusted relationships when securing their business. Sophos is headquartered in Oxford, U.K. More information is available at www.sophos.com.
Role Summary
Sophos is seeking a highly experienced and dynamic Senior Director of Threat Operations to lead the global strategy, vision, and operational execution of our Managed Detection and Response (MDR) and Security Operations functions. This senior leader will be accountable for driving organizational performance, operational excellence, and customer outcomes across a 24x7 global threat response capability.
The Senior Director will partner closely with Product, Engineering, Sales, and executive leadership to evolve Sophos’ MDR service, strengthen our competitive position, and enhance customer trust. This role requires a leader who is both strategic and deeply operational, capable of scaling teams, maturing processes, and guiding transformation across a complex and high growth security business.
What You Will Do
- Define and execute the global strategy for Threat Operations, ensuring alignment with Sophos’ broader business objectives, product roadmap, and customer commitments.
- Lead multiregion SOCs and Threat Ops functions with a focus on operational scale, service reliability, innovation, and measurable customer outcomes.
- Own operational OKRs, performance targets, and continuous improvement initiatives across global teams.
- Oversee global MDR operational delivery, including threat detection, response, threat hunting, automation, and analyst workflows.
- Drive transformation programs that enhance efficiency, tooling, quality, and incident handling maturity.
- Partner with Engineering and Product to shape roadmap priorities, requirements, and future service capabilities.
- Own capacity modeling, workforce planning, and longterm staffing strategies for a global 24x7x365 operation.
- Act as a sponsor for strategic customers, ensuring clarity, trust, and superior support during major incidents and escalations.
- Engage with executive leadership (internal and external) to represent Threat Operations, service posture, and strategic initiatives.
- Drive customer retention and service expansion in partnership with Sales and Customer Success.
- Collaborate deeply with Threat Research and Labs to operationalize advanced detection capabilities.
- Influence longterm architecture and design decisions for SOC tools, data pipelines, automation, and telemetry.
- Champion security operations best practices across internal teams and customerfacing functions.
- Build and scale highperforming global teams, including frontline analysts, leads, managers, directors, and senior technical staff.
- Develop leadership bench strength, establish succession plans, and drive a culture of excellence, accountability, and innovation.
- Create and maintain a global operational training strategy, including career development frameworks.
- Drive established policies, procedures, and standards as a means of producing repeatable outcomes as they relate to Managed Detection and Response goals and objectives
- Perform team member assessment, development, and implementation of continuous improvement practices
What You Will Bring
- 10+ years of experience in cybersecurity, with 5+ years in senior operational leadership roles (Director/Senior Director or equivalent).
- Proven experience leading global SOC/MDR operations at scale across multiple time zones and operational functions.
- Strong executive presence with the ability to drive alignment, influence decisions, and communicate effectively with Csuite stakeholders.
- Deep understanding of modern attacker tradecraft, detection engineering, threat hunting, and incident response workflows.
- Demonstrated success in transforming operational organizations, including service modernization, tooling evolution, automation, and process redesign.
- Experience partnering with Product & Engineering to guide roadmap development and service capabilities.
- Strong analytical and KPIdriven mindset; proficient in leveraging metrics to drive operational performance.
- Background influencing or owning budget, P&L elements, or multimilliondollar program portfolios.
- Experience in highgrowth SaaS or MDR providers.
- Familiarity with frameworks such as MITRE ATT&CK, NIST CSF, and cyber defense maturity models.
Preferred
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Ready to Join Us?
At Sophos, we believe in the power of diverse perspectives to fuel innovation. Research shows that candidates sometimes hesitate to apply if they don't check every box in a job description. We challenge that notion. Your unique experiences and skills might be exactly what we need to enhance our team. Don't let a checklist hold you back – we encourage you to apply.
What's Great About Sophos?
· Sophos operates a remote-first working model, making remote work the primary option for most employees. However, some roles may necessitate a hybrid approach. While we are a remote first organization, applicants must have legal authorization to work in the jurisdiction where the position is posted, without requiring employer sponsorship.
· Our people – we innovate and create, all of which are accompanied by a great sense of fun and team spirit
· Employee-led diversity and inclusion networks that build community and provide education and advocacy
· Annual charity and fundraising initiatives and volunteer days for employees to support local communities
· Global employee sustainability initiatives to reduce our environmental footprint
· Global fitness and trivia competitions to keep our bodies and minds sharp
· Global wellbeing days for employees to relax and recharge
· Monthly wellbeing webinars and training to support employee health and wellbeing
Our Commitment To You
We’re proud of the diverse and inclusive environment we have at Sophos, and we’re committed to ensuring equality of opportunity. We believe that diversity, combined with excellence, builds a better Sophos, so we encourage applicants who can contribute to the diversity of our team. All applicants will be treated in a fair and equal manner and in accordance with the law regardless of gender, sex, gender reassignment, marital status, race, religion or belief, color, age, military veteran status, disability, pregnancy, maternity or sexual orientation. We want to give you every opportunity to show us your best self, so if there are any adjustments we could make to the recruitment and selection process to support you, please let us know.
Data Protection
If you choose to explore an opportunity, and subsequently share your CV or other personal details with Sophos, these details will be held by Sophos for 12 months in accordance with our Privacy Policy and used by our recruitment team to contact you regarding this or other relevant opportunities at Sophos. If you would like Sophos to delete or update your details at any time, please follow the steps set out in the Privacy Policy describing your individual rights. For more information on Sophos’ data protection practices, please consult our Privacy Policy Cybersecurity as a Service Delivered | Sophos
Skills Required
- 10+ years of experience in cybersecurity
- 5+ years in senior operational leadership roles
- Proven experience leading global SOC/MDR operations
- Strong executive presence and ability to influence decisions
- Deep understanding of threat detection and response workflows
Sophos Compensation & Benefits Highlights
The following summarizes recurring compensation and benefits themes identified from responses generated by popular LLMs to common candidate questions about Sophos and has not been reviewed or approved by Sophos.
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Leave & Time Off Breadth — Time away is positioned as broad, with company-wide wellness days plus dedicated learning days and paid volunteer time.
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Parental & Family Support — Family-related leave appears more comprehensive than baseline offerings, including paid parental leave, caregiver leave, and extended bereavement leave.
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Wellbeing & Lifestyle Benefits — Wellbeing support is emphasized through always-available assistance resources and a Calm subscription, suggesting a lifestyle-oriented benefits approach.
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The Company
What We Do
Cybersecurity Evolved. As a worldwide leader in next-generation cybersecurity, Sophos protects nearly 400,000 organizations of all sizes in more than 150 countries from today’s most advanced cyberthreats. Powered by SophosLabs – a global threat intelligence and data science team – Sophos’ cloud-native and AI-enhanced solutions secure endpoints (laptops, servers and mobile devices) and networks against evolving cybercriminal tactics and techniques, including automated and active-adversary breaches, ransomware, malware, exploits, data exfiltration, phishing, and more.
