Program Manager Defense Jobs in Chicago, IL (NOW HIRING)

Job Summary:
United Airlines is a global company that operates in hundreds of locations around the world, and they are seeking a Senior Manager for their Cyber Defense team. This role involves leading key operational and strategic priorities within the Cybersecurity Operations Center, ensuring operational alignment across various cybersecurity disciplines, and driving measurable security outcomes through effective leadership and process management.
Responsibilities:
• Own the performance of a 24/7 analyst organization — set the standard, hold the line, and build a team culture where accountability and continuous improvement are the expectation, not the exception
• Develop analysts and team leads through deliberate coaching, honest feedback, and stretch assignments — with measurable growth as the proof point; lead hiring to complete the CSOC build and retain talent by making this a team people want to stay on.
• Build and operationalize the processes, playbooks, and AI-assisted workflows that allow the CSOC to scale alert volume without scaling headcount proportionally
• Own the CSOC metrics framework — define and track MTTA, triage quality, false positive rates, AI agent performance, and analyst development KPIs — and use that data to drive decisions, not just report them
• Maximize the value of existing security investments before recommending new spend; identify capability gaps across people, process, and tooling and build a credible case for investment prioritization
• Represent United's CSOC in engagements with law enforcement, legal counsel, and cyber insurers during active incidents and program reviews — bringing operational clarity and defensible documentation to every external interaction
Qualifications:
Required:
• Bachelor's degree required
• 5+ years of work experience with 3 years in Cybersecurity disciplines such as Incident Response, CSOC, or Cyber Defense
• Operates with a high sense of urgency and sound judgment under pressure — able to rapidly assess ambiguous situations, cut through noise, and drive toward resolution whether the problem is a live incident, a failing AI agent, or a team performance issue
• Builds and sustains the operational cadence of a 24/7 CSOC — shift handoffs, triage reviews, AI performance checkpoints, and leadership syncs — ensuring the team maintains forward momentum without requiring constant escalation to the Director
• Drives cross-functional initiatives to completion in a complex, high-stakes environment — coordinating across Incident Response, Threat Detection Engineering, Cyber Threat Intelligence, and external partners without losing ownership or letting accountability diffuse
• Translates complex security and AI operational concepts for non-technical audiences — from explaining AI agent behavior to a legal team during an incident, to presenting CSOC performance metrics to executive leadership in terms that drive decisions
• Identifies trends in alert patterns, AI agent performance, and analyst behavior — and converts those observations into tactical recommendations and operational changes that measurably improve CSOC outcomes over time
• Builds trust across a wide stakeholder landscape — frontline analysts, senior executives, legal and compliance teams, and external partners — with the interpersonal range to lead a fatigued analyst through a difficult shift and brief a CISO in the same day
• Working knowledge of AI and machine learning concepts as applied to security operations — including how large language models, agentic workflows, and automated triage systems behave, fail, and improve; able to evaluate AI agent outputs critically, define performance acceptance criteria, and enforce human-in-the-loop governance standards that prevent over-reliance on automated decision-making
Preferred:
• Master's degree in a STEM field
• PMP
• CISSP
• CISM
• CISA
• GCIA
Company:
United Airlines is an aviation company that provides information on reservations, bookings, and travel services online. Founded in 1926, the company is headquartered in Chicago, USA, with a team of 10001+ employees. The company is currently Late Stage.