Senior Cybersecurity Engineer, Dubai

Emerald Zebra Executive Search is seeking a Senior Cybersecurity Engineer based in Dubai. 

Our client is a PCI DSS Level 1 payment-orchestration platform. We are seeking an experienced, proactive Senior Cybersecurity Engineer to strengthen the security team and protect our infrastructure across endpoint, email, network and web-facing payment platforms. 

The role combines senior security operations — incident ownership, detection engineering and L2/L3 escalation — with hands-on engineering and administration of the enterprise security stack (EDR, email security, DLP, SASE/VPN, WAF, DDoS). 

The successful candidate will also be the day-to-day technical owner of our managed out-of-hours detection & response service and will contribute to security governance, architecture and documentation under our PCI DSS programme. 

This is a senior individual-contributor role for someone who can own incidents end-to-end, raise the maturity and resilience of the function, and operate calmly in a fast-paced, compliance-driven environment.

Key responsibilities:

1. Serve as the senior in-house L2/L3 escalation point during business hours and own incident response end-to-end: triage, containment, eradication, recovery, root-cause analysis and post-incident review.

2. Act as technical owner of the co-sourced MDR / managed security service providing out-of-hours L1/L2 coverage — maintain the escalation matrix, validate handoffs and oversee service quality and SLAs across the 24/7 window.

3. Operate, tune and harden the enterprise security stack (SIEM/XDR, EDR, email security, DLP, SASE/VPN, WAF, DDoS) and maintain detection content, correlation rules and incident-response playbooks.

4. Drive the implementation and evidencing of PCI DSS technical controls (Requirements 1, 4, 5, 7, 8, 10, 11, 12) with the Cybersecurity Lead and QSA, including Cloudflare Layer 7 / WAF / DDoS architecture input.

5. Review phishing and suspicious email, investigate malware and anomalous behaviour, handle senior security tickets, and support periodic access reviews and audits.

6. Author and maintain SOPs, runbooks and incident reports; mentor operational staff and reduce single-point-of-failure risk.

Required Qualifications:

1. 7+ years' hands-on experience in cybersecurity / security operations / security engineering, including time in a senior or lead capacity.

2. Demonstrated experience implementing and evidencing controls under PCI DSS (and/or ISO 27001, NIST CSF, CIS Benchmarks).

3. Proven incident-response ownership across the full lifecycle, from triage to post-incident review.

4. Experience working alongside or managing an MDR / managed SOC service, including escalation governance and SLA oversight.

5. Degree in Computer Science, Information Security or a related field, or equivalent practical experience.

Required Skills & Competencies:

1. Deep, hands-on SIEM/XDR and EDR operation, tuning and detection engineering.

2. Administration of email security, DLP, SASE and VPN platforms.

3. WAF, API security and DDoS mitigation (Cloudflare or comparable edge platforms).

4. Strong grasp of network-security fundamentals — TCP/IP, DNS, HTTP/S — and common attack techniques.

5. Excellent documentation (SOPs, runbooks, incident reports) and calm, clear stakeholder communication under pressure.

Nice-to-have / Preferred:

1. Hands-on Check Point Harmony (Endpoint, Email & Collaboration, SASE) and/or Check Point managed-services experience; Cloudflare Enterprise (WAF, DDoS, Bot Management).

2. Industry certifications (CISSP, GIAC GCIH/GCIA/GMON, Check Point, Cloudflare, Security+) and prior payment-gateway, fintech or PCI DSS Level 1 experience.

Benefits:

• Competitive salary package aligned with experience and market standards.
• Medical Insurance starting from day 1.
• Access to training resources and development opportunities that support your professional growth.
• Well-stocked office with snacks, drinks, and refreshments available daily.
• A multinational organisation that promotes a strong, collaborative culture
• Regular team-building events and company activities that strengthen collaboration across teams.
• Employee Recognition Program celebrating our "Employee of the Month" with special perks.

This is an onsite role and the Senior Cybersecurity Engineer (Dubai) salary range is approx: AED 25,000–35,000 per month (AED 300,000–420,000 per year).