Remote Principal, Threat Operations Leader

Careers At National Student Clearinghouse

Current job opportunities are posted here as they become available.

By joining the National Student Clearinghouse, you can be sure that the work you do now will help shape the future of education and the workforce in the U.S. As the trusted source for higher education data since 1993, the Clearinghouse is the leading provider of transcript and data exchange services, automated enrollment and degree verifications, learner insights and research, and compliance solutions for schools, businesses, and learners nationwide.

As a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, the Clearinghouse works with nearly 3,600 postsecondary institutions to meet their compliance needs and with thousands of high schools and districts to provide continuing collegiate enrollment, progression, and completion statistics about their alumni. In addition, the Research Center publications inform policymakers and business leaders about student educational pathways. Using our unique combination of data, analytics, and software to drive our mission, security and privacy is paramount.

Join us as we continue to invest in our talent and new advanced technologies to unlock the power of data on behalf of all learners.

The Technical Specialist, Threat Operations serves as a senior operational leader and key partner within the Cyber Operations team, acting as the functional second-in-command across threat operations activities. This role is responsible for building, scaling, and sustaining a comprehensive threat operations program that translates threat and exposure signals into actionable insights and business risk decisions.

This position combines hands-on operational oversight—including detection, triage, investigation, and response—with ownership of strategic program elements such as threat intelligence, lifecycle governance, and Continuous Threat Exposure Management (CTEM). The role also requires leadership through influence, driving consistent execution, talent development, and high-quality outcomes across analysts, partners, and stakeholders.

The Technical Specialist, Threat Operations is expected to maximize AI-assisted and agentic AI workflows while maintaining human accountability, secure data handling, and audit-ready evidence. All outputs must remain defensible, traceable, and aligned with enterprise governance standards.

Currently, this is a remote-first position, and this position may be required to periodically work on-site at our office and the frequency would depend on the department/division's requirements. Therefore, candidates must either reside within a reasonable distance to commute to our office or be willing to travel to our office in Herndon, when required.

• Demonstrate the Clearinghouse's core competencies:
  Customer Focus, Optimizes Work Processes, Collaborates, Communicates Effectively, and Be Open and Authentic.
• Oversee detection, triage, and validation of security alerts, ensuring timely and evidence-based disposition.
• Translate technical findings into clear risk-based recommendations and actionable next steps.
• Serve as escalation lead during high-severity incidents, ensuring proper scoping, documentation, and remediation to closure.
• Develop and mature the threat operations program roadmap, including CTEM strategy and operating model.
• Perform business-centric threat modeling to align adversary activity with enterprise risk and impact.
• Define governance frameworks, including prioritization logic, escalation criteria, and executive reporting.
• Design and continuously improve repeatable workflows, including AI-assisted triage, investigation, and reporting processes.
• Establish and manage key performance indicators (e.g., MTTD, MTTR, detection quality, noise reduction).
• Maintain playbooks, investigation templates, and escalation workflows to ensure consistency and audit readiness.
• Drive continuous improvement of detection fidelity through tuning and feedback loops.
• Implement AI-assisted workflows with clear human-in-the-loop validation and decision points.
• Ensure secure handling of sensitive data and alignment with…