Incident Response Project Manager

Job Summary

As our Incident Response Project Manager, you will be primarily dedicated to external, client-facing projects within our Incident Response team. You will be the driving force behind successful, thorough, and robust project deliverables that result in progressive change and secure enhancements to our client's technical environments. As the primary face of the team on client calls, you will field questions, establish trust, and set precedent as the go-to person for all incident-related matters.

You will be tasked with understanding the current state of an incident, establishing ownership of the overall direction of containment and recovery, and ensuring all parties are aligned with the verticals defined. Constantly in sync with the primary lead engineer leading containment and recovery strategies and delivering agreed-upon strategic initiatives to all parties, you will work as part of a dynamic, flexing team - ready to respond at a moment's notice mapping into your team's on-call rotation.

This position will report directly to our Director of Incident Response PMO.

Project Management

• Coordinates multiple, external technical projects from inception to completion:
  • Follows established core processes, project templates, and methodologies
  • Takes a lead in Professional Services stand-ups & meetings
  • Collaborates on project planning, project design, preparation of deliverables, time lining, and contingency planning
  • Understands SOW requirements and converts them into realistic, executable project plans
  • Manages the project resources to effectively execute on-time deliverables
  • Tracks and manages the project budget from the outset through successful completion
  • Tracks and oversees T&M project scope and related time entries, confirming their validity
  • Employs creative measures to keep project scope contained
  • Ensures QA standards are being met before project delivery
• Outlines goals, strategy, and execution with Abacus's engineers:
  • Assists in the initial triage and establishment of access for project kick-off
  • Drives team's development of project proposals and scope documentation
  • Leverages conflict management techniques to address disagreements
  • Assigns and aligns necessary resources, understanding resource requirements and capacity (perm or contracted) on projects, maximizing available resources and leveraging each engineer's skill set effectively
  • Follows up with engineers on a weekly, daily, or (when necessary) hourly basis to understand the progress of their assigned work and to identify potential roadblocks
• Monitors and summarizes progress of project(s) to stakeholders:
  • Company Leadership
  • Finance
  • Client Contacts and IR Partners
• Sets and conducts status meetings with client contacts, keeping them informed of progress and setting proper expectations:
  • Leads the creation of PowerPoint presentations and project reports as required for large projects
• Participates in incident response on-call rotation for incoming IR projects
• Identifies and understands when it is necessary to escape issues to higher-level resources
• Addresses billing disputes, overruns, and customer service issues with meaningful resolutions, looping in additional Entara resources as necessary
• Conducts post-mortems to outline lessons learned and improve internal processes

Problem Solving

• Becomes an active part of project teams solving technical or business roadblocks until a resolution is reached and the outcome is personally verified
• Perseveres in making sound judgment calls when lacking one or more desired resources or data points
• Challenges technical or business requirements ensuring that we deliver the right solution, at the right price, at the right time
• Leverages and employs an understanding of intermediate to advanced systems configuration, management, and maintenance in areas including the following (this is a sample but not exhaustive listing of work areas and project tasks assigned to our IR-focused engineers):
• Microsoft-related technologies:
  Windows Server, Exchange, SQL Server, SharePoint, Active Directory, GPO, LAPS, SCCM, MDT, Intune, 0365, Azure etc.
• Virtualization technologies: VMware and Microsoft Hyper V
  • Restore and reimage virtual servers from images and various backup solutions
  • Restore and rebuild ESX and Hyper-V hosts, domain controller, etc.
• Mount ISOs to virtual systems
• Upload virtual templates to any hypervisor
• Out of Band access to Physical systems
• Leverage console access such as ILO and iDrac to establish remote connection to offline physical systems
• Backup and disaster recovery solutions for both desktops and servers
• Access solutions: VPN, Remote Desktop, Citrix, etc.
• Diagnostic tools; review event logs, Syslogs, monitoring data, and memory dumps to troubleshoot issues.
• Security-enhancing solutions for systems and applications (including MFA and endpoint protection).

Metrics Measuring Success

• Maintains billable utilization targets
• Ensures all mandatory reports are generated and updated daily
• Meets or exceeds deadlines for all assigned projects
• Keeps projects…