Role brief
Job description
**Mercor is hiring SOC Investigation Specialist** on behalf of high-growth technology and enterprise partners building next-generation SOC automation and AI-driven investigation systems. This role is ideal for experienced SOC analysts who can apply real-world investigative judgment to review, validate, and construct high-quality security investigations across SIEM, endpoint, cloud, and identity environments.
* * *
### Responsibilities
– Review, monitor, and evaluate SOC alerts and investigation outputs based on predefined scenarios and criteria.
– Distinguish true positives from false positives by validating investigative evidence and alert context.
– Perform end-to-end security investigations when required, including log analysis, entity pivoting, timeline reconstruction, and evidence correlation.
– Assess the correctness, completeness, and quality of SOC investigations produced by automated or human workflows.
– Apply consistent investigative judgment while recognizing that multiple valid investigation paths may exist for the same alert.
– Make clear binary determinations (e.g., ACCEPT / PASS) while also producing detailed ground-truth investigations when required.
– Use Splunk extensively to pivot across logs, entities, and timelines, including reading and reasoning about SPL queries.
– Maintain clear and accurate documentation of investigative steps, assumptions, evidence, and conclusions.
– Collaborate with program leads and other expert annotators to uphold high-quality investigation and annotation standards.
– Mentor or support other analysts where applicable, particularly in long-term or lead annotator roles.
* * *
### Requirements
– 3+ years of hands-on experience as a SOC analyst in a production SOC environment (Tier 2 or above strongly preferred).
– Strong understanding of alert triage, incident investigation workflows, and evidence-based decision-making under time constraints.
– Mandatory hands-on experience with **Splunk**, including:
– Conducting investigations using Splunk
– Reading, understanding, and reasoning about SPL queries
– Pivoting between logs, entities, and timelines
– Proven ability to evaluate SOC investigations and determine whether conclusions are valid, incomplete, or incorrect.
– Strong investigative judgment and comfort making decisive evaluations.
– Fluent English (written and spoken) with strong documentation and communication skills.
* * *
### Nice to Have
– Experience with Endpoint Detection & Response (EDR) tools such as CrowdStrike Falcon, Microsoft Defender for Endpoint, or SentinelOne.
– Experience analyzing cloud security logs and signals:
– AWS (CloudTrail, GuardDuty)
– Azure (Activity Log, Defender for Cloud)
– GCP (Cloud Audit Logs)
– Familiarity with Identity & Access Management platforms such as Okta Identity Cloud or Microsoft Entra ID (Azure AD).
– Experience with email security tools like Proofpoint or Mimecast.
– SOC leadership or mentoring experience.
– Basic scripting experience (Python or similar).
– Security certifications (optional): GCIA, GCIH, GCED, Splunk certifications, Security+, CCNA, or cloud security certifications.
* * *
### Why Join
– Work on cutting-edge SOC automation and AI-driven investigation systems.
– Apply real-world SOC expertise to shape how future security teams investigate and respond to threats.
– Take ownership of high-impact investigative evaluations and ground-truth security cases.
– Collaborate with experienced SOC practitioners, security engineers, and AI teams.
– Join Mercor’s global network of vetted security professionals.