Director, Engineering, Proactive Offense

Horizon3.ai is a fast-growing, remote cybersecurity company dedicated to enabling organizations to proactively find, fix and verify exploitable attack vectors. As Director of Software Engineering – Offensive Security, you will lead the strategy, design, and development of NodeZero’s offensive capabilities while managing multiple engineering teams and driving innovation in autonomous attack content and platform scalability.

Responsibilities:

• Lead and scale Horizon3.ai’s Offensive Engineering organization, overseeing teams responsible for exploit development, offensive content, and attack automation within the NodeZero platform
• Set clear technical and product direction for how NodeZero identifies, exploits, and validates vulnerabilities across large, complex environments
• Partner closely with Product, Precision Defense, and Platform teams to define and deliver offensive capabilities that directly influence the roadmap and enhance customer outcomes
• Drive execution from proof-of-concept through production-transforming cutting-edge attack research into scalable, productized features
• Stay hands-on enough to guide architectural decisions and evaluate complex exploit and automation approaches
• Mentor technical leads in building resilient, modular systems that power NodeZero’s offensive testing engine
• Build, mentor, and scale diverse teams of software engineers, exploit developers, and offensive researchers
• Foster a culture of collaboration, creativity, and engineering excellence that bridges traditional offensive and product software development
• Collaborate across engineering, product, and GTM teams to align offensive innovation with business priorities, and ensure delivery of measurable, impactful capabilities for customers

Requirements:

• Proven experience leading and scaling engineering teams in offensive or cybersecurity product development, ideally within a fast-paced startup or growth-stage environment
• Strong technical background in software development and system architecture, with hands-on experience in offensive security domains such as exploit development, vulnerability research, attack automation, or red teaming
• Demonstrated success taking offensive capabilities or SaaS products from concept to market, including driving POCs, MVPs, and production launches
• Deep understanding of distributed systems, automation pipelines, and large-scale SaaS platforms, with the ability to guide architectural and design decisions
• A product-oriented mindset, skilled at balancing technical excellence, customer impact, and speed to market
• Exceptional leadership and collaboration skills—experienced in managing managers, aligning cross-functional teams, and partnering effectively with Product and GTM stakeholders
• Excellent analytical, communication, and storytelling abilities—capable of translating complex offensive engineering concepts into clear, actionable direction
• High degree of initiative and ownership; creative, detail-oriented, and results-driven
• Bachelor's or Master's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related field (or equivalent experience)
• Deep expertise in offensive security techniques, frameworks, and tooling (e.g. Metasploit, Cobalt Strike, Sliver, or custom exploit frameworks)
• Proficiency in at least one modern object-oriented programming language such as Python, Go, C++, or C#, with experience building and maintaining large-scale software systems
• Strong understanding of vulnerability research, exploit development, and post-exploitation automation, with the ability to translate offensive tradecraft into scalable product capabilities
• Solid grasp of platform design, system architecture, and automation pipelines, including CI/CD, containerization, and infrastructure-as-code principles
• Experience with cloud infrastructure and services (AWS, Azure, GCP), as well as modern DevOps and observability practices
• Deep familiarity with network protocols, multiple operating systems (Windows, Linux, macOS, Kali, Ubuntu), and common enterprise technologies
• Hands-on experience building or leading engineering for B2B SaaS or security platforms, ideally within a cyber or offensive security company
• Working knowledge of databases (PostgreSQL, Neo4j, or similar) and data flow design
• Awareness of cybersecurity industry standards and trends, with an ability to bridge technical and product perspectives
• Offensive security certifications such as OSCP, OSEP, OSED, or GPEN
• Experience mentoring teams on offensive tradecraft or developing proprietary offensive tooling