Lead - SME (Email Abuse)

At Sutherland we are a group of energetic and driven individuals. If you are looking to build a fulfilling career and are confident you have the skills and experience to help us succeed, we want to work with you!

Role Summary:

The Subject Matter Expert (SME) – Mail Operations will serve as a technical and operational expert supporting email operations, spam/abuse mitigation, and Trust & Safety workflows. The role will be responsible for handling complex and escalated cases, providing subject matter guidance to analysts, monitoring emerging email abuse trends, and supporting operational excellence in a 24x7 environment.

Key Responsibilities:

• Act as the Subject Matter Expert for email operations, spam, phishing, spoofing, abuse, and related Trust & Safety workflows.
• Provide real-time guidance and support to analysts in handling complex, high-risk, and escalated email abuse cases.
• Review complex cases and ensure decisions are aligned with defined policies, procedures, and security protocols.
• Monitor trends related to spam, phishing, spoofing, malware, account abuse, and other forms of email-based threats, and identify emerging patterns.
• Support incident investigations, root cause analysis (RCA), and corrective/preventive actions for operational and quality issues.
• Conduct regular knowledge-sharing, coaching, calibration, and refresher sessions for analysts to improve process understanding and decision accuracy.
• Support Team Leaders and Operations Managers with quality, productivity, SLA, and operational performance insights.
• Leverage Splunk and other relevant tools to monitor operational trends, investigate incidents, track KPIs, and generate actionable insights.
• Demonstrate a strong understanding of SPF, DKIM, DMARC, SMTP, email headers, and email infrastructure to support investigations and troubleshooting.
• Identify process gaps and recommend process improvements, automation opportunities, and workflow optimizations.
• Support the development and maintenance of SOPs, process documentation, knowledge articles, and troubleshooting guides.
• Participate in calibration sessions and quality reviews to drive consistency and accuracy across the team.
• Partner with cross-functional teams, including Trust & Safety, Security, Engineering, Product, Quality, and Operations, to resolve complex issues and improve workflows.
• Support new-hire training, nesting, upskilling, and ongoing capability-building for the operations team.
• Stay current on evolving email threats, abuse patterns, authentication standards, and industry best practices, and translate relevant insights into operational improvements.
• Support 24x7 operations, including shift-based activities, escalations, and critical incident management as required.
• 4+ years of experience in email operations, Trust & Safety, email security, SOC, cybersecurity operations, or a related domain.
• Strong understanding of SMTP, SPF, DKIM, DMARC, email headers, DNS, and email infrastructure.
• Hands-on experience with Splunk, including dashboard usage, log analysis, monitoring, and investigation.
• Strong knowledge of spam, phishing, spoofing, malicious emails, email abuse, and threat vectors.
• Demonstrated experience handling complex investigations, escalations, and incident analysis.
• Strong analytical and problem-solving skills with the ability to identify patterns and determine appropriate actions.
• Experience conducting RCA, trend analysis, quality reviews, and process improvement initiatives.
• Strong communication and stakeholder-management skills, with the ability to explain technical concepts to both technical and non-technical audiences.
• Ability to work independently, make sound decisions, and provide real-time operational guidance in a fast-paced environment.
• Experience working in a 24x7 operational setup is preferred.
• Preferred Skills:
• Experience in email security, cybersecurity, Trust & Safety, or abuse prevention.
• Knowledge of SIEM tools, threat intelligence, log analysis, and security monitoring.
• Familiarity with automation, scripting, or data-analysis tools.
• Experience working with large-scale email platforms or cloud-based email environments.
• Relevant certifications in cybersecurity, email security, or cloud technologies would be an advantage.