Productowner Cybersecurity

Do you want to make education and research resilient to cyber threats? Do you enjoy developing innovative cybersecurity services and would you like to help others use cyber solutions? If you also want to work with our institutions on projects to increase technical cyber resilience in concrete terms, then we are looking for you!

Where you will work

SURF is the ICT cooperative for Dutch educational and research institutions. Together with them, we work on digital services and complex innovation challenges to enhance the quality of education and research. An important strategic goal of SURF and its members is to make Dutch education and research more resilient in the field of cybersecurity. A risk-based approach is central to this. We focus on technology, awareness, and organization.

Those who work at SURF work for a unique and open organization. This is evident in everything: the structure of the organization, the setup of the project teams, the culture in our offices, and the atmosphere among colleagues. SURF offers excellent terms of employment and is flexible when it comes to work/life balance. Employees enjoy working independently. In addition, everyone is given the space and freedom to use and develop their talents as effectively and broadly as possible.

The team you will join

The Security Awareness and Organization Team is a team of 10 people, each with their own thematic responsibility. This team is part of the Trust & Security department, and together we are responsible for service provision, innovation, and collaboration in the areas of cybersecurity, privacy, and IAM. On Mondays, we are always in the office and start the week with a check-in together.

Our team focuses primarily on helping our colleagues at the institutions, which is why our communities of security and privacy professionals are central to us. Being able to help them provide a safe learning and working environment is what we do it for.

What you will do

In this role as cybersecurity product owner, you will be responsible for the Technical Resilience theme. You will help institutions increase their technical resilience through innovative projects and community activities. For example, you will organize resilience tests and maintain a technical framework that gives institutions insight into their practical resilience. You will also run projects focused on developing new tooling and applying basic measures such as network segmentation, encryption, multi-factor authentication, and logging.

As a product owner, you will also be responsible for SURF domains and involved in the underlying DNS infrastructure. You will ensure that this continues to run smoothly, monitor customer satisfaction, and develop the service. You will be responsible for the business case for SURF domains and will take care of planning and reporting. You will work closely with the technical product managers for this service. You will also develop our security services portfolio, for example in the field of DNS Firewalls or by establishing links with other (security) services.

What else you will be doing

• Based on priorities from the target group, the most common cyber threats and solutions, you will lead projects to help institutions gain insight into their technical resilience.
• You will be responsible for our cybersecurity service SURFdomains. Together with the technical product managers of this service, you will ensure that it functions properly and develop it where necessary.
• You will maintain close contact with educational and research institutions about your services and projects, their use and further development. You will be responsible for business cases, reports, planning and communication.
• You promote the importance of a joint approach for the entire education and research sector, share project results within the target group, and act as an ambassador for cybersecurity within education and research.
• Together with the team, you are responsible for the service portfolio in the field of security, further developing it and performing backup tasks as product manager.

Your skills and experience

You are a proactive professional with a solid foundation in cybersecurity and the ability to make technical topics understandable to a wide range of audiences. You switch effortlessly between content, collaboration, and organization and feel comfortable in a role that involves both responsibility and connection.

In addition, you have

• HBO / WO working and thinking level and at least 3 years of relevant work experience;
• Demonstrable affinity with modern cybersecurity techniques; demonstrable experience with cybersecurity is an advantage;
• Experience communicating with different target groups about technically complex topics such as cybersecurity;
• Experience with project management and/or product management;
• Excellent command of the Dutch language and ability to work both independently and in a team;
• Experience in understanding the wishes of different target groups (such as students, teachers, ICT staff).

SURF takes pleasure in doing its recruitment itself; acquisition is therefore not appreciated.