Staff IT Security Analyst

If you’re passionate about building a better future for individuals, communities, and our country—and you’re committed to working hard to play your part in building that future—consider WGU as the next step in your career.

Driven by a mission to expand access to higher education through online, competency-based degree programs, WGU is also committed to being a great place to work for a diverse workforce of student-focused professionals. The university has pioneered a new way to learn in the 21st century, one that has received praise from academic, industry, government, and media leaders. Whatever your role, working for WGU gives you a part to play in helping students graduate, creating a better tomorrow for themselves and their families.

The salary range for this position takes into account the wide range of factors that are considered in making compensation decisions including but not limited to skill sets; experience and training; licensure and certifications; and other business and organizational needs.

At WGU, it is not typical for an individual to be hired at or near the top of the range for their position, and compensation decisions are dependent on the facts and circumstances of each case. A reasonable estimate of the current range is:
 

Grade: Technical 410

Pay Range: $140,200.00 - $217,200.00

Job Description

*This opportunity can be located in Salt Lake City, Utah, or Raleigh, NC.

The Staff IT Security Analyst is a position of technical expertise and leadership in the security technology function. They will use their knowledge of current security methods and standards to gather operational information and access and analyze tools, systems, and processes in defense of applications, systems, and networks and collaborate with Infrastructure and business teams. They will act as a lead support role for the IT Security team and provide mentorship to lower level analysts. They will also engage in the support of security focused tools and services. In addition, they may be asked to assist with risk assessments, forensics analysis, data collection, user training and other security related tasks.

Job Duties

• Monitor and analyze alerts from multiple data sources (SIEM, SOAR, UEBA, EDR, email gateways, cloud logs).
• Lead investigations of complex incidents across hybrid (cloud/on-prem) environments.
• Perform threat hunting and correlation of Indicators of Compromise (IoCs) using the MITRE ATT&CK framework.
• Develop, tune, and maintain detections, alerting, and rules to improve signal-to-noise ratio and reduce alert fatigue.
• Ensure proper data points are captured for calculating risk and detecting abnormalities in large datasets.
• Research and deconstruct cyber-attacks into sequenced IOCs detectable through network device logs.
• Lead the development and automation of SOC toolsets for real-time, automated configuration and control of cloud-based and software-defined infrastructure.
• Maintain responsibility for automation and software delivery of security tools using CI/CD processes.
• Design and implement SOAR functions to automate compliance enforcement, configuration management, and malicious activity remediation.
• Collaborate with engineering teams to ensure complete log ingestion, data normalization, and data quality.
• Integrate SOC tooling with ServiceNow and other enterprise systems for case management and workflow automation.
• Lead the development of security content and use cases aligned to the MITRE ATT&CK Framework.
• Design and document enterprise-wide detection logic and architectural policies from definition to implementation.
• Conduct ROI and gap analyses for both new and existing tools and detections.
• Create new detection processes and identify emerging threats and mitigation strategies.
• Serve as escalation point for Tier 1–2 analysts; provide mentorship, QA, and technical guidance.
• Drive continuous improvement in Mean Time to Detect (MTTD) and Mean Time to Respond (MTTR).
• Support post-incident reviews, root cause analyses, and executive reporting.
• Document investigations, case notes, and lessons learned in alignment with SOC SOPs.
• Participate in on-call rotations and after-hours escalations.
• Engage with Security Architects to capture design requirements for cloud architectures and implementation strategies.
• Identify gaps in the University’s security model and propose improvements in tools and processes.
• Conduct requirements gathering, architecture design, and integration planning for SOC initiatives.
• Perform ROI and risk analyses to support executive decision-making.
• Ensure compliance and alignment with organization