The SOC Analyst 2 supports the organization's security operations by conducting deeper investigation of escalated alerts, correlating security telemetry, supporting incident response activities, and preparing incident summaries and recommendations. This role is the mid-level investigation and response-support tier within the SOC Analyst role family.
The ideal candidate has hands-on SOC or security operations experience, understands common attack techniques and defensive technologies, and can independently investigate security events while coordinating with SOC Analyst 1, SOC Analyst 3, threat intelligence, threat hunting, forensics, engineering, and business stakeholders.
This role involves shift work schedule to support our 24/7 operation, including weekends and holidays. Candidates must be flexible in their availability. While we make every effort to accommodate individual preferences, it's essential to understand that specific shift requests are not guaranteed and are assigned based on operational needs.Key ResponsibilitiesEscalated Alert Investigation & Correlation - Review and investigate alerts escalated by SOC Analyst 1 or automated SOC workflows to validate severity, scope, potential impact, and required response actions.
- Analyze suspicious activity, indicators of compromise, anomalous behavior, and policy violations using logs, endpoint telemetry, network data, identity data, cloud events, and other evidence.
- Correlate evidence across security platforms to identify affected assets, affected accounts, attack paths, timeline of activity, and potential business or mission impact.
- Map observed behaviors to applicable frameworks and threat models such as MITRE ATT&CK when useful for investigation, reporting, or detection improvement.
Incident Response & Coordination Support - Support containment, eradication, and recovery activities for standard or moderate incidents in alignment with incident response plans and approved playbooks.
- Coordinate with system owners, security engineers, senior analysts, and other technical teams to gather evidence, validate impact, and support response actions.
- Escalate complex, high-impact, evidence-sensitive, or ambiguous incidents to SOC Analyst 3, SOC leadership, Forensics, Threat Hunter, Threat Intelligence Analyst, or other specialized roles as appropriate.
- Maintain accurate incident status, action tracking, and communications during investigation and response activities.
Detection, Tuning & Process Improvement Input - Analyze recurring alerts, false positives, attack patterns, threat intelligence, vulnerabilities, and emerging tactics to identify opportunities to improve detection and response.
- Recommend updates to correlation rules, alert logic, dashboards, use cases, response playbooks, and triage procedures based on investigation outcomes.
- Operationalize threat intelligence in triage and investigation workflows by applying relevant indicators, adversary behaviors, vulnerabilities, and contextual reporting.
- Provide operational requirements and validation feedback to SOC Analyst 3, SOC Threat Hunter, Senior Splunk Engineer, Splunk Architect/Lead, Security Engineer, and SOC Technical Writer as appropriate.
Reporting & Documentation - Document investigation activities, evidence, decisions, response actions, and outcomes clearly and accurately.
- Prepare incident summaries, ticket updates, timelines, shift handoff notes, and supporting information for after-action documentation.
- Communicate technical findings in clear operational, business, and risk language for SOC leadership and affected stakeholders.
- Provide evidence summaries and analysis notes that can be used by Forensics or specialized teams when deeper analysis is required.
Mentorship & Continuous Improvement - Provide escalation guidance, quality feedback, and informal mentoring to SOC Analyst 1 personnel.
- Participate in lessons-learned activities, tabletop exercises, detection reviews, and SOC process improvement efforts.
- Stay current with evolving cyber threats, vulnerabilities, detection techniques, and security operations best practices.
- Contribute to continuous improvement of SOC workflows, investigation checklists, documentation practices, and escalation procedures.
- U.S. Citizenship with ability to obtain and maintain a DOE "L" clearance after start.
- 3-5 years of experience in SOC operations, incident response, security monitoring, threat monitoring, or related technical cybersecurity roles.
- Experience triaging escalated alerts and investigating security events using SIEM, EDR, ticketing, case management, and log analysis tools.
- Intermediate knowledge of Windows, Linux, networking, cloud, identity, endpoint, and application security concepts.
- Working knowledge of common attack techniques, incident response lifecycle activities, escalation procedures, playbooks, and evidence-handling practices.
- Ability to correlate evidence across multiple tools, develop incident timelines, and determine recommended response actions.
- Strong analytical, written documentation, communication, and collaboration skills, including the ability to guide SOC Analyst 1 personnel.
