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Salary: USD 214,200 - 308,000 / annual
Abnormal AI is hiring a Director of Security Engineering to lead and scale the security engineering organization, reporting to the CISO. This is a deeply technical leadership role for someone with a software engineering background who has grown into people management.
You will serve as deputy to the CISO, acting with full authority in their absence and representing the security organization to executives, customers, and regulators. You will lead, coach, and grow managers and senior engineers across Security Engineering and Security Operations, owning the security engineering roadmap including cloud security architecture (AWS-first), detection and response, identity, vulnerability management, and secure-by-default platform investments.
Key responsibilities include:
- Driving cross-functional programs with Engineering, IT, and Product on AI security governance, data perimeter controls, and federal compliance initiatives
- Setting and defending engineering standards for the security organization: everything as code, automated where possible, measured against outcomes
- Building hiring pipelines and owning performance management, promotion cases, and succession planning
- Translating technical risk into business terms for the executive team and board, and translating business priorities into coherent security strategy
Abnormal AI operates a commercial cloud environment and a separate FedRAMP-authorized environment, pursuing increasingly rigorous federal authorizations. The company's security philosophy emphasizes reducing toil, paved paths and secure-by-default infrastructure, partnership over gatekeeping, and engineering-grade rigor.
You will inherit strong teams, an executive staff that treats security as a first-class function, and a CISO who wants a true partner. The scope is broad, autonomy is real, and the ceiling is defined by what you take on.
REQUIREMENTS:
- 10+ years in security or software engineering, including 4+ years managing security teams (ideally including managers of managers or equivalent scope)
- Genuine software engineering background: shipped production software, evaluate security solutions as an engineer would
- Proven record of building and scaling high-performing security teams with alumni who would work for you again
- Deep technical fluency in cloud-native environments: AWS organizations and multi-account governance, Kubernetes, identity and access, detection engineering, modern SDLC security
- Demonstrated cross-functional leadership: earned trust of engineering leaders and shipped security outcomes through their teams
- Strong written communication: produce decision-ready documents, drive alignment asynchronously
- Executive presence: comfortable presenting to C-level leadership, customers, and auditors without preparation
STRONG SIGNALS:
- Currently a security engineering manager or senior manager at fintech, high-growth startup, or forward-leaning enterprise, ready for broader scope
- Built paved-path or secure-by-default platforms that measurably reduced both risk and developer friction
- Experience with compliance-driven environments (FedRAMP, SOC 2, ISO 27001) without letting compliance define the program
- Experience securing AI/ML systems or governing AI adoption at scale
- Operated in environments where security headcount was scarce and automation was the only way to scale
