Principal Cybersecurity Specialist, Incident Response in Toronto

Questrade Financial Group (QFG) provides securities and foreign currency investment, professionally managed investment portfolios, mortgages, real estate services, financial services and more. We use cutting-edge technology to help Canadians become much more financially successful and secure. At QFG, we combine human-centric collaboration with AI-driven innovation to redefine financial services. The ideal candidate will be a catalyst for change, using AI to transform and deliver unparalleled customer experiences and shaping a future where AI empowers our teams to do their best work.

Join our diverse, inclusive, and hybrid workplace to unleash your creativity and nurture your curiosity without limits. If you share this sense of infinite possibility, come shape your future at QFG.

What’s in it for you as an employee of QFG?

• Health & wellbeing resources and programs
• Paid vacation, personal, and sick days for work-life balance
• Competitive compensation and benefits packages
• Work-life balance in a hybrid environment with at least 3 days in office
• Career growth and development opportunities
• Opportunities to contribute to community causes
• Work with diverse team members in an inclusive and collaborative environment

This job posting is for an existing vacancy. We’re looking for our next Principal Cybersecurity Specialist, Incident Response. The Principal Cybersecurity Specialist, Incident Response is a critical contributor to delivering sustainable and measurable results in identifying and responding to cyber threats - safeguarding our company's infrastructure and data. You will be primarily involved in leading the alert development cycle, triaging and investigating alerts, managing the full incident response lifecycle (investigation, containment, eradication, and recovery) and collecting and tracking metrics for reporting.

The Principal Cybersecurity Specialist, Incident Response works alongside internal customers and our vendor support teams to ensure we are utilizing our security tools in accordance with corporate policies and growing business needs. You will work closely with Cybersecurity and IT teams to align priorities and execute plans for new initiatives, as well as drive process improvements and establish documentation for new tools.

In this role, responsibilities include but are not limited to:

• Mentoring and elevating the technical capabilities of the SOC team.
• Monitoring, analyzing and reporting possible cybersecurity attacks.
• Investigating and performing analysis of threat indicators.
• Gathering Indicators of compromise and any relevant data to use with threat hunting activities.
• Leveraging security tools (Elastic, CrowdStrike and more) for analysis to identify malicious activities.
• Analyzing identified malicious activity to determine Tactics, Techniques and Procedures.
• Conducting research, analysis and correlating gathered data from various resources to determine the impact of the incident.
• Leading containment and eradication efforts, making critical decisions during high-severity incidents.
• Participating in on-call and hands-on scheduled shift rotations, including outside of business hours.
• Leading Security Incident Response and serving as the escalation point for complex investigations across internal teams and third party providers.
• Documenting incident timelines, evidence, and actions taken for post-incident review.
• Leading post-incident reviews and driving continuous improvement from lessons learned.
• Defining and continuously improving the SOC's incident response playbooks, runbooks, and detection strategy.
• Designing and leading tabletop exercises and IR simulations.
• Coordinating and running proactive investigations and threat hunts across corporate environments and detecting malicious activities.
• Maintaining up-to-date understanding of security threats, countermeasures, security tools, cloud security and SaaS technologies.
• Setting the standard for technical proficiency; evaluating and recommending tools, techniques, and methodologies for the team.
• Presenting investigation, incident response findings and strategic recommendations to senior leadership and executive stakeholders.
• Defining, owning, and reporting on SOC operational metrics (MTTD, MTTR, alert fidelity) and using data to drive strategic improvements.

So are YOU our next Principal Cybersecurity Specialist, Incident Response? You are if you have:

• 8+ years of relevant experience in performing and leading Cybersecurity Incident Response and Threat Hunting activities in a complex incident management or Security Operations Center environment.
• Extensive experience designing, implementing and optimizing detection rules and detection-as-code frameworks.
• Demonstrated expertise integrating security tools via APIs for automation, and hands-on experience implementing Security Orchestration, Automation, and Response (SOAR) workflows.
• Deep expertise leading complex, multi-vector investigations and incident response using EDR tools such as CrowdStrike Falcon and SIEM tools such as Elastic Security (KQL, ESQL, Timeline analysis).
• Advanced experience with forensic triage (disk, memory, network) and multiple operating systems (Mac, Linux, Windows).
• Proven track record of designing and maturing SOC processes, playbooks, detection strategies, SIEM correlation rules, and incident reports.
• Proven ability to lead incident management for high-severity incidents, with excellent communication under pressure.
• Proficiency in programming languages such as Python, JavaScript and others for security automation and tooling development.
• Deep understanding of NIST Cybersecurity Framework, MITRE ATT&CK, and ability to apply them to detection engineering and threat modeling.
• Comprehensive understanding of security products and device monitoring tools including Firewalls, IDS/IPS, Phishing and e-mail security, content filtering, DDoS, WAF, and more.
• Demonstrated experience mentoring and developing technical skills across a security team.
• Strong ability to translate technical findings into strategic recommendations for leadership.
• Experience with cloud-native security monitoring (GCP, AWS, Azure).

Additional Kudos If You:

• Hold GCIH, GCED, CCFR, HTB CDSA, GCFA, CHFI, GREM, OSCP, CISSP or similar relevant certifications.

Operating hours for this role are standard office hours, Monday to Friday with on-call scheduled rotations, including weekends and evenings.

Compensation Information: Base salary range: $120,000 - $140,000. The final compensation package will be commensurate with the successful candidate's experience, skills, and geographic location (Canada). It includes a comprehensive benefits plan and a competitive incentive (bonus) program for Full-Time Permanent roles.

At Questrade Financial Group of Companies, with multiple office locations around the world, we are committed to fostering a diverse, inclusive and accessible work environment. This is an environment where individuals are treated with dignity and respect. Here, the unique skills and experience you bring will be valued. You will be supported and motivated, so that you can harness your unlimited potential. Our team reflects the diversity of the communities we serve and operate in. Having a collaborative and diverse team helps us push boundaries to bring the future of fintech into existence—not only for the benefit of our customers, but for those who build their career with us.