Senior Program Manager

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