Incident Response Lead

About the Role

As one of our first Cyber Incident Response (CIR) hires in Germany, this role will help establish and expand Coalition’s incident response presence in the market. This person will serve customers in Germany and the broader region, and must be fluent in German and English, with the ability to communicate highly technical concepts clearly to both technical and non-technical audiences. 

Responsibilities

• Drive incident response engagements to guide our customers through forensic investigations, contain security incidents, and provide guidance on longer term remediation recommendations.
• Coordinate and guide incident response assistance from team members and vendors.
• Investigate customer data breaches and malicious activity leveraging forensics tools; analyze Windows, Linux, and Mac OS X systems to identify Indicators of Compromise (IOCs); examine firewall, web, database, and other log sources to identify evidence of malicious activity.
• Provide case reporting as required across internal and external audiences with the appropriate technical level of detail for threat researchers and/or business customers.
• Evaluate customer security programs, technologies, controls, and business environments; recommend and develop enhancements.
• Provide recommendations on solutions to help customers navigate information security risk.
• Track emerging security practices and contribute to building internal processes and our various products.
• Stay abreast of the current regulatory environment, industry trends, and related implications, including Germany- and EU-relevant security and privacy expectations.
• Support the growth of Coalition’s CIR presence in Germany as an early in-country team member, helping build trusted relationships with local customers and partners.

Skills and Qualifications

• Fluency in German and English is required. Minimum C1 level. 
• Bachelor’s Degree in Computer Science, Information Security, Engineering, or other relevant subjects.
• 5+ years of incident response or digital forensics experience.
• Demonstrated practiced knowledge of the lifecycle of network threats, attacks, attack vectors, and methods of exploitation with a knowledge of intrusion set tactics, techniques, and procedures.
• Knowledge of TCP/IP Protocols, network assessment and network/security applications, including log and network traffic capture assessment.
• Experience with Velociraptor, Axiom, FTK, SIFT, Volatility, ELK, WireShark, Plaso, Skadi or other open source forensic/log analysis/network assessment tools.
• Experience with EDR tools like CrowdStrike Falcon, Carbon Black, Sentinel One, etc.
• Knowledge of industry standard frameworks – NIST, HIPAA, PCI.
• Familiarity with GDPR and awareness of German and EU regulatory considerations, including data privacy and incident handling expectations.
• Self-motivated; entrepreneurial spirit; comfortable working in a dynamic environment.
• Strong interactive communication skills (verbal & written) in both German and English.
• Aptitude to learn technical concepts/terms, and aptitude to guide multiple tasks/projects simultaneously.
• Experience deploying tools to AWS and familiarity using cloud-based platforms for assessment.

Additional Skills and Qualifications

• Excellent critical thinking skills with the experience to diagnose and troubleshoot technical issues.
• Customer oriented with a strong interest in consumer satisfaction.
• Experience to learn new technologies and concepts and comfortable using command-line interfaces.
• Experience guiding teams of highly motivated analysts.
• Communicate highly technical information to a non-technical audience.
• Experience to handle and work with consumers through high priority scenarios.
• Knowledge in project management.
• Foster a positive work environment and attitude.
• Flexibility with your work schedule in times of urgent response needs, including support across Central European business hours as needed.
• Contribute to thought guidance within the DFIR industry.
• Ability to work effectively as an early hire in a new market, with a builder mindset and strong cross-functional collaboration skills.

Bonus Points

• GCIH, GCIA, GCFA, GCFE, ACE, EnCE, CFCE, CISSP, or similar.
• Security policy, governance, privacy or regulatory experience (e.g., NIST, ISO, HIPAA, PCI).
• Familiarity with Germany- or EU-relevant security practices and frameworks, such as GDPR or BSI-aligned environments.
• Securing cloud-based platforms (Microsoft Azure, Amazon AWS, etc.).
• Experience with system hardening procedures for Windows, Linux, Unix is helpful. Knowledge and/or experience with Nmap, Nessus, Nexpose, Qualys, Burp, Kali, Metasploit, Meterpreter, or other offensive tools is helpful.
• Knowledge of scripting for development of security tools and industry frameworks is helpful.
• SCADA/Control systems network experience is a plus.

Perks

• 100% public healthcare coverage
• 30+ paid holidays
• Annual home office stipend
• Statutory pension
• Mental & physical health wellness programs
• Competitive compensation and opportunity for advancement