Head of Security Operations & Engineering - Flutter Functions, Hybrid

• Cluj-Napoca, Romania
• Permanent
• Betfair Romania Development

The Head of Security Operations and Engineering is responsible for protecting the organization through the design, build, and operation of scalable, resilient, and intelligence-driven security capabilities. This role leads the teams that detect, respond to, and prevent security threats while also engineering the platforms, tools, and automation that underpin those capabilities.

Sitting at the intersection of strategy and execution, the role ensures that security operations are not only effective in responding to incidents, but continuously improving through engineering excellence, threat intelligence, and data-driven decision-making. It combines real-time defense (e.g., monitoring, detection, incident response) with long-term capability building (e.g., tooling, automation, detection engineering, and platform integration) leaning into the opportunity of Agentic AI for faster analysis, detection & response.

The Head of Security Operations and Engineering partners closely with Security Architecture, Threat Intelligence, Engagement and Engineering teams to ensure that controls are operationalized, detections are meaningful, and response processes are efficient and repeatable. A key focus is reducing mean time to detect and respond (MTTD/MTTR), increasing visibility across the environment, and ensuring the organization can effectively defend against evolving threats.

The role is accountable for ensuring that security operations are proactive, intelligence-led, and tightly integrated with engineering—moving the organization from reactive defense to a mature, adaptive AI-enabled security posture.

Key Accountabilities & Responsibilities:

• Responsible for developing and leading Security Operations and Engineering teams that will secure our global services.
• Form an integral part of the Technology Operations leadership team, setting and executing our Cloud Security Strategy.
• Work closely with our vendors including AWS, Wiz, Crowdstrike, Cata Networks, Cribl & Splunk to derive as much value from the partnerships as possible.
• Explore ways to adopt Agentic AI into our detection and response capabilities to drive pace in our analysis and response practices
• Lead and support on incidents and mentor team to be able to manage confidently in incident scenarios
• Establish appropriate AI-augmented Risk and Vulnerability Management practices
• Liaise with Data protection, Risk and Audit teams, understanding their requirements and ensuring our solutions meet them, as well as other required security compliance and regulatory standards.
• Develop our SOC capability to respond at machine speed to AI-based threats
• Work closely with other technology teams ensuring alignment of roadmaps and establish DevSecOps best practices with them.
• Engage with other brand Security leaders ensuring knowledge sharing.
• Provide training, mentoring, consulting, and knowledge transfer to team members.
• Establish appropriate processes/procedures, policies and reporting (including KPIs) for all tooling and systems introduced.
• Promote a mentality of continuous improvements, whether through enhancement of services or agentic completion of manual tasks.

Competencies:

• Big Thinker: Constantly explores and analyses future scenarios and possibilities to help Flutter respond to change and shape the future; drives self and others to pursue opportunities that will create sustainable value for Flutter; contributes to the functional and the Flutter strategy, mapping and aligning efforts to strategic imperatives.
• Effective Communicator : Provides clarity on business goals; is effective in all types of communication; adjusts communication style to fit the audience; consistently communicates the mission, vision and values to inspire, energise and motivate others throughout Flutter; ensures others understand how their efforts positively impact the bigger picture; creates an environment that encourages effective communication and the sharing of diverse perspectives.
• Commercially Savvy: Makes it their business to be aware and anticipate emerging external factors and changing market dynamics; constantly explores and analyses future scenarios and possibilities to help Flutter respond to change and shape the future; has deep understanding of business drivers and the industry to guide decisions and lead others.
• Customer Obsessed: Builds and maintains strong relationships with stakeholders; champions the needs of customers and the importance of exceeding expectations; builds and delivers solutions that exceed customer expectations; prioritises customer satisfaction and builds commitment in others to provide outstanding service.
• Nimble: Is energised by new and unfamiliar situations and quickly adapts; advocates active experimentation and encourages others to be agile in their approach; is adaptable and flexible when developing others encouraging them to learn quickly when faced with new situations and be open to new ideas and ways of working; proactively shares lessons learned.
• Wins Together: Gains trust and support of others, generous with time, advice and knowledge; is able to establish and engage networks to get stuff done rather than depend on authority; seeks out opportunities to break down barriers and collaborate and partner across organisational boundaries.
• Resilient: Creates a climate where people are curious, resilient, determined, learn and adapt; handles and manages crises effectively; anticipates and shows the way forward during setbacks; builds energy in others to stick with it/ to stay on track / push through.

Skills, Capabilities & Experience Required:

• Experience of operating in a senior technology role within a fast-paced online/eCommerce organisation.
• Extensive experience of building, leading and transforming teams.
• Extensive experience with Security Operations Centres (SOC), as well as Network, Identity, Application and Data security.
• Experience of DevSecOps, including code pipeline security and using Agile philosophies/models.
• Strong understanding of configuration management and automation systems.
• Subject matter expert of Security technologies, with demonstrable experience of developing and implementing them.
• Good understanding of Cloud Infrastructure platforms (e.g. AWS, GCP, Azure).
• Strong written and verbal communication skills, ability to communicate effectively with all levels of audience including executive leadership.
• Powerful analytical and problem-solving skills, including the ability to develop solutions in new and creative ways.
• Ability to independently clarify and assess issues and effectively prioritize workload.
• Competent in the field of business change, with an ability to drive change across large organisations and ensure adoption of changes.
• A proven track record of delivering solutions with an outcome/value focus, leading at scale to successfully deliver against strategic objectives.
• Excellent understanding of Service Management and Service Lifecycle frameworks.
• Future Ready: Demonstrating curiosity and openness toward AI and emerging technologies, with a willingness to continuously learn, adapt, share knowledge and collaborate with AI tools in your day to day activity.