Principal DFIR Consultant

General Description:

The Principal DFIR Consultant is the highest individual contributor level within GuidePoint Security's DFIR Practice. Operating at the intersection of deep technical expertise, client leadership, and organizational influence, the Principal serves as the practice's foremost technical authority.  This individual is brought in on the most complex, high-severity, and high-visibility engagements. In addition to leading critical investigations, the Principal shapes how the practice operates: developing methodologies, mentoring Senior and Analyst-level staff, contributing to business development, and driving continuous improvement across the team.

About the DFIR & Threat Intelligence Practice:

The DFIR & Threat Intelligence Practice helps organizations prepare for, respond to, and recover from cyber incidents, turning front-line experience into intelligence that keeps clients ahead of the threat. Six specialized teams work as one across the full arc of an incident, from readiness planning through response, recovery, and threat research. We partner with client security and legal teams, cyber insurance carriers, breach counsel, and GuidePoint's regional and sales organizations to cut dwell time and limit business impact.

The six teams:

• DFIR (Digital Forensics & Incident Response) — Breach investigation, forensics, containment, and eradication when an incident is confirmed or suspected.
• IRA (Incident Response Advisory) — Readiness before an incident: IR planning, tabletop exercises, Blue Team enablement, and program maturity assessments.
• GRIT (GuidePoint Research and Intelligence Team) — Original threat research and intelligence that drives our investigations, Threat Actor communications, TI advisory, and as-a-Service capabilities.
• SD (Strategic Delivery) — Delivery management that keeps engagements staffed, on track, and consistent.
• R&R (Recovery & Restoration) — Post-incident rebuild that returns clients to safe, operational environments.
• Insurance & Counsel — The bridge to carriers and breach counsel through the claims and legal side of an incident.

What sets us apart: one integrated practice carries a client through the whole lifecycle with no hand-off gaps, including the demanding parts of an engagement that most providers cannot cover in-house, from GRIT's Threat Actor communications and negotiation support to R&R's full environment restoration and coordination with insurers and counsel. GRIT's research feeds live investigations so our response reflects how adversaries operate now, and established carrier and counsel relationships make GuidePoint a trusted partner across the incident response community.

Roles and Responsibilities:

Technical Leadership & Engagement Execution

• Oversight & QA: Serve in the Oversight role on complex or high-severity engagements, reviewing findings before client calls, providing technical depth, anticipating client questions, and ensuring quality of analysis and deliverables.
• Lead on Critical Engagements: Step in as engagement Lead on the most complex or sensitive investigations (ransomware, APT, nation-state, insider threat), setting the standard for client communication and investigative rigor.
• Advanced Technical Execution: Conduct advanced host forensics, network analysis, malware reverse engineering/triage, cloud forensics, threat actor attribution, and intelligence-driven investigation.
• Surge Capacity: Serve as a trusted surge resource for the team during high-volume periods, providing senior-level coverage across concurrent engagements.

Practice Development & Mentorship

• Methodology Ownership: Design, document, and maintain DFIR investigation methodologies, playbooks, and SOPs that raise the quality floor for the entire practice.
• Mentorship: Actively mentor Senior Consultants and Analysts; provide guidance on technical challenges, client management, and professional development. Help develop the next generation of DFIR leads.
• Knowledge Sharing: Lead internal training sessions, write technical blog posts and research, document lessons learned, and contribute to the team's collective knowledge base.
• Tool & Automation Development: Identify gaps in current tooling and processes; design and build automation, scripts, or integrations that improve investigative efficiency across the team.
• Hiring Support: Participate in candidate screening, technical interviews, and skills assessment to help build a high-quality team pipeline.

Client & Business Development

• Client Trust: Build deep, trusted relationships with key clients and stakeholders; serve as a credible senior voice during high-stakes incidents.
• Pre-Sales & Scoping: Support pre-sales activities including technical scoping, proposal development, SOW review, and client presentations for DFIR, Compromise Assessment, and IR Advisory engagements.
• Industry Presence: Represent GuidePoint Security externally through conference presentations, webinars, publications, and engagement with the broader DFIR community.

Engagement & Availability Expectations

The Principal Consultant operates at the top of the IC ladder and is held to a commensurately high standard for availability, initiative, and ownership. This includes:

• Maintaining consistent availability outside standard business hours for high-severity incident surges and team escalations.
• Participating in on-call rotation as appropriate for seniority.
• Proactively identifying and addressing gaps in team performance, processes, or client delivery.
• Setting an example of professionalism, urgency, and ownership that the broader team can follow.

Required Experience and Education: 

• 8+ years of hands-on DFIR experience, including complex incident response and forensic investigations.
• 10+ combined years of IT and information security experience.
• Demonstrated experience in a Lead or senior technical role on high-severity engagements (ransomware, APT, nation-state, or insider threat).
• Expert-level proficiency across multiple DFIR disciplines: host forensics, network forensics, log analysis, malware triage, cloud IR, and BEC investigation.
• Exceptional written and verbal communication skills; ability to present complex technical findings to executive and legal audiences.
• Proven track record of mentoring and developing junior and mid-level technical staff.
• Experience developing or contributing to DFIR methodologies, playbooks, or tooling.
• Embraces emerging technologies, including AI tools, to work smarter, solve problems, and drive better business outcomes.

Preferred Experience and Education:

• Prior consulting or professional services experience at a leading DFIR or cybersecurity firm.
• Advanced proficiency with scripting and tooling: PowerShell, Python, Bash, Go, or similar; experience building custom investigative tools.
• Deep experience with EDR, NDR, XDR, SIEM, Velociraptor, and commercial/open-source forensic platforms.
• Cloud incident response expertise: AWS, Microsoft 365, Azure, Google Workspace; familiarity with cloud-native forensic techniques.
• Experience with threat actor attribution, CTI integration, and intelligence-driven investigation.
• Familiarity with ransomware negotiation considerations, threat actor communications, and recovery workflows.
• External thought leadership: conference talks, published research, blog posts, or community contributions.
• Relevant certifications: GREM, GCFA, GCFE, GDAT, GCIH, GCIA, CISSP, or equivalent; advanced or multiple certifications are a strong plus.

What Success Looks Like:

• You are the person the team calls when an engagement gets complicated.
• Senior Consultants and Analysts are measurably better at their jobs because of your mentorship and the standards you set.
• You have meaningfully improved at least one methodology, playbook, or tool used by the practice.
• Clients and partners recognize Guide Point’s DFIR practice as best-in-class, as a result of your technical and client-facing contributions.
• You operate with complete ownership and initiative: you identify problems, propose solutions, and execute without being asked.
• You represent GuidePoint externally in a way that builds the brand and generates trust in the DFIR community.

Travel Requirements:

• Up to 10% travel

Physical Requirements:

• Sedentary work
• Substantial movement of the wrists, hands, and/or fingers for a minimum of 8 hours a day
• Required to have close visual acuity to view computer terminal and/or extensive reading for a minimum of 8 hours a day