Security Operations Specialist

Position Information

General Information


Position Number
008132


Vacancy Open to
All Candidates


Working Title
Security Operations Specialist


Position Designation
EHRA Non-Faculty


Employment Type
Permanent - Full-time


Months per Year
12


Work Schedule


8:00 am - 5:00 pm; Monday - Friday with occasional evening and weekend hours required, as necessary.

Hours per week
40


FLSA Status
Exempt


Division
OneIT


Department
Office of OneIT (Adm)


Work Location
Kennedy


Salary Range

Primary Purpose of Department


The Office of OneIT provides highly reliable information technology infrastructure, tools, and services to empower the University to achieve its academic, research, administrative, and service goals.

Primary Purpose of Position


The Security Operations Specialist is a highly technical, action-oriented role focused on defending the University's digital infrastructure from active threats. This position will lead the initiative to integrate AI within the University's security toolset. Instead of relying on passive compliance checklists, this position leverages cutting-edge artificial intelligence, machine learning, and automated orchestration to enable proactive threat hunting, accelerate real-time threat containment, and lower alert fatigue.

Summary of Position Responsibilities

Security Operations Support

• Contribute to continuous improvement of the security information and event management (SIEM) system, developing processes and procedures for monitoring, alerting, detection, and response functions for on-premise, cloud-based, and, as appropriate, third-party systems and services.
• Review system logs and real-time alerts to identify trends, investigate abnormalities, and report exceptions.
• Tune and create analytic detection policies for detecting and monitoring anomalous and malicious activity across the University Information Technology ecosystem.
• Contribute to continuous improvement in Security Operations tasks and functions.
• Support vulnerability management operations for the University and affiliates.
• Create and maintain data dashboards and reports based on various systems of record to help the University IT community identify vulnerabilities, enabling them to focus their efforts to mitigate IT security risks across our environment.

Proactive Defense & AI-Augmented SOC Support

• Threat Hunting:Deploy machine learning models and AI-driven behavior analytics to actively hunt for hidden threat actors.
• SOC Augmentation: Design and maintain AI-assisted agents to triage alerts and automate response, reducing alert fatigue and response time.
• Dynamic Optimization:Continuously build, tune, and refine policies across the Security tools to accurately catch modern, fast-moving attacker techniques.

Engineering Offensive & Defensive Tooling

• Automated Defense: Assist Security Engineers to optimize and maintain Security Orchestration, Automation, and Response (SOAR) systems.
• Adversarial Simulation: Develop and automate scripts and AI attack simulations to test existing defenses.

Incident Response

• Perform the role of an incident response team member in the event of a successful attack to support technical response actions, incident mitigation, and recovery activities.
• Participate in investigations of security incidents and provide resolutions based on alerts and events provided by security dashboards ranging from a Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) system to vulnerability scans or penetration testing assessments.
• Contribute to procedures for proactive and reactive Incident Response to be used University-wide.

Minimum Education/Experience

• Bachelor's degree in computer science, computer engineering, information security, or other closely related field and
• 2+ years of relevant work experience; or an
• Equivalent combination of education and relevant work experience.

Preferred Education, Knowledge, Skills and Experience

• Coding Experience
• Experience working with Small and Large Language Models
• Experience in a higher education environment
• Experience within a security operations team
• Understanding of how to utilize automation tools to increase the productivity and responsiveness of a SOC.
• Ability to perform comfortably in a fast-paced, deadline-oriented work environment.
• Ability to successfully execute many complex tasks in rapid succession.
• Experience with security tools (EDR, XDR, SIEM, Vulnerability Scanning)
• One or more information security certifications such as GCIH, GPEN, SSCP are preferable, but not required.

Necessary Certifications/Licenses

Preferred Certifications/Licenses


Security+, CASP, ISC2 SSCP, GIAC GCIH, GPEN.

Special Notes to Applicants

• If there is a document you feel is relevant to this position that you would like reviewed with your resume and application, you may upload it to the "Other Documents" section of the Applicant Documents.
• The finalist will be subject to a Criminal Background Check and/or a Motor Vehicle Report.
• The Search Committee will not contact references without first verifying permission with
  the finalist.
• Please ensure your resume reflects the knowledge, skills, abilities, and experiences to
  support your answers to the supplemental questions.
• UNC Charlotte Benefits Information:

Posting Open Date
07/27/2026


Posting Close Date

Open Until Filled
Yes


Proposed Hire Date

If time-limited please indicate appointment end date

Contact Information