Director of Security Engineering

Abnormal AI protects organizations from sophisticated email and collaboration attacks using behavioral AI. The company is seeking a Director of Security Engineering to lead and scale its Security Engineering organization, serve as deputy to the CISO, own major security programs, and represent security to executives, customers, and regulators.

Responsibilities:

• Serve as deputy to the CISO: act with full authority in the CISO's absence and represent the security organization to executives, customers, and regulators
• Lead, coach, and grow managers and senior engineers across Security Engineering and Security Operations
• Own the security engineering roadmap: cloud security architecture (AWS-first), detection and response, identity, vulnerability management, and secure-by-default platform investments
• Drive cross-functional programs with Engineering, IT, and Product, from AI security governance to data perimeter controls to federal compliance initiatives
• Set and defend engineering standards for the security organization: everything as code, automated where possible, measured against outcomes rather than activity
• Build hiring pipelines and raise the bar on every hire; own performance management, promotion cases, and succession planning within your teams
• Translate technical risk into business terms for the executive team and board, and translate business priorities into a coherent security strategy

Requirements:

• This is a role for a deeply technical leader with a software engineering background who has grown into people leadership
• You have built security teams from the ground up, you write and review code and architecture when it matters, and you believe the best security organizations earn their influence through partnership rather than policy enforcement
• 10+ years in security or software engineering, including 4+ years managing security teams, ideally including managers of managers or equivalent scope
• A genuine software engineering background: you have shipped production software, and you evaluate security solutions the way an engineer would
• A 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, and modern SDLC security
• Demonstrated cross-functional leadership: you have earned the trust of engineering leaders and shipped security outcomes through their teams, not around them
• Strong written communication: you produce decision-ready documents and can drive alignment asynchronously
• Executive presence: comfortable presenting to C-level leadership, customers, and auditors without preparation from the CISO
• You are currently a security engineering manager or senior manager at a fintech, high-growth startup, or forward-leaning enterprise, and you are ready for broader scope
• You have 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 security program
• Experience securing AI/ML systems or governing AI adoption at scale
• You have operated in environments where security headcount was scarce and automation was the only way to scale