Overview:
Alnylam is pioneering RNAi therapeutics and scaling rapidly across research, development, manufacturing, and global commercialization. The Associate Director, Cyber Defense – Staff Incident Responder will play a critical role in protecting the enterprise by leading complex cyber investigations and advancing detection and response capabilities across a global environment. Reporting to the Senior Director, Cyber Defense, this senior individual contributor will operate in a highly technical, hands-on capacity—driving incident response, forensic analysis, and threat hunting while shaping how Alnylam detects, investigates, and responds to advanced threats. This role will also help evolve detection and response capabilities through tooling, automation, and scalable engineering approaches. This is a hybrid position, primarily based in Cambridge, MA and includes participation in an on-call rotation, with flexibility to support incident response outside standard business hours, as needed.
Responsibilities:- Lead complex cyber investigations and incident response across global environments, driving end-to-end containment, eradication, and recovery
- Perform advanced forensic analysis and proactive threat hunting to identify attacker behavior, persistence mechanisms, and lateral movement
- Translate investigation findings into scalable improvements in detection coverage, telemetry, and response effectiveness
- Develop and enhance incident response playbooks, investigation workflows, and containment strategies based on real-world threats
- Improve response speed and effectiveness through detection engineering, alert tuning, automation, and removal of systemic bottlenecks
- Build and evolve incident response tooling, scripts, and integrations to enable scalable and efficient operations
- Influence and optimize the security tooling ecosystem to improve signal quality, visibility, and investigative outcomes
- Lead post-incident analysis, producing clear, actionable reports that drive remediation and strengthen security posture
- Partner cross-functionally to drive remediation, hardening, and long-term risk reduction across the enterprise
- Provide technical leadership and mentorship to junior responders while guiding best practices across Cyber Defense
Qualifications:- 8+ years of hands-on experience in incident response, digital forensics, threat hunting, or security operations within enterprise environments (including cloud)
- Deep investigative expertise across endpoint, cloud, network, and identity domains, including correlation of multi-source telemetry and forensic artifacts
- Strong scripting and automation skills (e.g., Python, Go, PowerShell, Bash) to support scalable investigation and response workflows
- Proven ability to independently lead complex investigations and make high-confidence technical decisions in high-pressure environments
- Strong understanding of attacker tactics, techniques, and procedures, including experience with frameworks such as MITRE ATT&CKExperience applying industry incident response frameworks (e.g., NIST, CISA) in real-world scenarios
- Demonstrated impact improving detection and response through tooling, process, or program enhancements
- Experience leading cross-functional initiatives with enterprise-wide impact
- Strong communication skills, with the ability to translate technical findings, risks, and recommendations for technical and non-technical stakeholders
- About Alnylam
We are the leader in RNAi therapeutics – a revolutionary approach with the potential to transform the lives of people with rare and common diseases.
Built on Nobel Prize-winning science, Alnylam has delivered the breakthroughs that made RNAi therapeutics possible and are just at the beginning of what's possible. Our deep pipeline, late-stage programs, and bold vision reflect our core values: fierce innovation, passion for excellence, purposeful urgency, open culture and commitment to people. We're proud to be a globally recognized top employer, where an authentic, inclusive culture and breakthrough thinking fuel one another.
At Alnylam, we commit to an inclusive recruitment process and equal employment opportunity. Qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to their sex, gender or gender identity, sexual orientation, race, color, ethnicity, national origin, ancestry, citizenship, religion, creed, physical or mental disability, pregnancy status or related conditions, genetic information, veteran or military status, marital or familial status, political affiliation, age, or any other factor protected by federal, state, or local law.
Alnylam is an E-Verify Employer. Before applying, please review Alnylam's Candidate Privacy Notice regarding how Alnylam handles Personal Data you provide with your application for employment.#LI-MH1 #LI-HybridThe pay range below reflects the full-time base salary range we expect to pay for this role at the time of posting. Base pay will be determined based on a number of factors including, but not limited to, relevant experience, skills, and education.
This role is eligible for an annual short-term incentive award (e.g., bonus or sales incentive) and an annual long-term incentive award (e.g., equity).Alnylam's robust Total Rewards package is designed to support your overall health and well-being. We offer comprehensive benefits including medical, dental, and vision coverage, life and disability insurance, a lifestyle reimbursement program, flexible spending and health savings accounts and a 401(k)with a generous company match.
Eligible employees enjoy paid time off, wellness days, holidays, and two company-wide recharge breaks. We also offer generous family resources and leave. Our commitment to your well-being reflects our belief that caring for our people fuels the impact we create together.
Learn more about these and additional benefits offered by Alnylam by visiting the Benefits section of the Careers website: U.S. Pay Range$174,300—$235,700 USD
