Engineering Manager, Web Application Discovery

Job description

**Get to Know Us** Horizon3 is a fast-growing, remote cybersecurity company dedicated to the mission of enabling organizations to proactively find and fix and verify exploitable attack vectors before criminals exploit them. Our flagship product, the NodeZeroTM platform, delivers production-safe autonomous pentests and other key assessment operations that scale across the largest internal, external, cloud, and hybrid cloud environments. NodeZero has been adopted by organizations of all sizes, from small educational institutions to government agencies and Global 100 enterprises. It is used by ITOps/SecOps teams, consulting pentesters, and MSSPs and MSPs. We are a fusion of former U.S. Special Operations cyber operators, startup engineers, and formerly frustrated cybersecurity practitioners. We're committed to helping solve our common security problems: ineffective security tools, false positives resulting in alert fatigue, blind spots, "checkbox” security culture, cybersecurity skills shortage, and the long lead time and expense of hiring outside consultants. Collectively, we are a team of learn it alls, committed to a culture of respect, collaboration, ownership, and results. # Essential Functions ## Leadership & Team Development - Lead and grow a team of engineers specializing in web application discovery, crawling, and attack surface enumeration. - Set technical direction, methodology standards, and quality expectations for the team's deliverables. - Mentor engineers and raise the bar for coverage completeness, framework breadth, and the reliability of what the team ships. - Drive hiring and organizational scaling as the engineering team expands. - Actively manage performance across the team, recognizing high performers, addressing underperformance early, and creating opportunities for growth. ## Discovery Strategy & Execution - Own the team's strategy for web application surface discovery within NodeZero ensuring the platform can reliably find pages, forms, API endpoints, parameters, and authentication surfaces across customer deployed applications. - Guide development of crawling and spidering capabilities that handle the real-world complexity of modern web applications: JavaScript-heavy SPAs, multi-step authentication flows, session management, dynamic routing, and non-standard navigation patterns. - Ensure discovery coverage is comprehensive and consistent to set the test phase up for success. - Oversee benchmark and regression testing to ensure coverage doesn't silently degrade as applications and frameworks evolve. - Partner with the downstream teams to understand what discovery gaps are creating missed findings and prioritize work accordingly. ## Product & Cross-Functional Partnership - Partner with Product and software engineering teams to translate discovery gaps into prioritized roadmap input and productized capabilities. - Work closely with the Webapp Pen Testing team to create tight feedback loops between discovery coverage and test coverage — what doesn't get found can't get tested. - Engage with architects and engineers to ensure high-quality technical requirements on complex discovery initiatives. - Help define the team's technical roadmap over quarterly horizons, balancing new framework coverage against reliability and performance improvements. - Work with customers and internal teams to investigate coverage questions and address gaps in what NodeZero discovers in their environments. # Competencies / Requirements ## Leadership - 3–5+ years leading engineering, security, or offensive security teams. - Experience managing teams of 4–8+ engineers; comfort scaling a team as the organization grows. - Proven ability to balance hands-on technical depth with the strategic and people responsibilities of management. - Strong coaching instincts: able to assess talent, set growth goals, and develop engineers across experience levels. - Experience managing performance — both high performers and underperformers — with clarity and accountability. ## Web Application Security Knowledge - Solid understanding of how modern web applications are structured including routing, authentication flows, session management, APIs, and how different frameworks expose (or obscure) surfaces. - Familiarity with web crawling, spidering, and content discovery techniques, including the challenges posed by single-page applications and multi-step authentication. - Understanding of HTTP fundamentals: request/response structure, cookies and headers, redirects, state management, and how browsers and automated tools interact with web applications differently. - Ability to evaluate the completeness of a discovery pass: what was found, what was likely missed, and why, as well as being able to articulate that clearly to engineers and stakeholders. ## Technical & Engineering Fluency - Experience in Python or similar to collaborate fluently with software engineers on remediation and product coverage. - Familiarity with CI/CD workflows, ticketing systems (e.g., Jira), and full product development life cycles. - Sufficient technical depth to evaluate the quality of team output, identify coverage gaps, and partner with senior ICs on technical direction. ## Product + Customer Orientation - Experience translating technical gaps into product roadmap input and prioritized engineering work. - Ability to prioritize and make strategic tradeoffs when PM support is limited. - Strong written and verbal communication skills across technical and non-technical audiences. - Customer-first mindset with a focus on completeness, reliability, and clear output. # Desired Skills - Hands-on experience with web crawling or scraping tools, browser automation (e.g., Playwright, Puppeteer, Selenium), or similar content discovery tooling. - Familiarity with web application pentesting, understanding how discovery feeds into testing, and what testers need from a discovery pass to do their jobs well. - Familiarity with relational and graph databases, particularly Postgres and Neo4j. - Certifications such as OSCP, OSWE, or comparable offensive security credentials are a plus. # Expectations - Highly self-directed and effective in ambiguous environments. - Able to operate at both strategic and hands-on technical levels: credible to practitioners on the team and to senior leadership alike. - Maintains high standards for coverage completeness, reliability, and production safety across all team output. - Strong cross-functional partner across Engineering, Product, and GTM. - Relentlessly curious about how modern web applications are built and how that affects what can and can't be found automatically. # Travel Required We are a fully remote company, and this job may require up to 10% travel for company kick offs and team on-sites. **Perks of Horizon3** - Inclusive Team: We value diversity and promote an inclusive culture where everyone can thrive. - Growth Opportunities: Be part of a dynamic and growing team with numerous career development opportunities. - Innovative Culture: Work in a collaborative environment that encourages creativity and out-of-the-box thinking. - Hybrid & Remote Work: We embrace a mix of remote and hybrid work models depending on role and location, including our Chicago office, where some roles require regular in-office presence. - Competitive Compensation: We offer competitive salary, equity and benefits. Our benefits include health, vision & dental insurance for you and your family, a flexible vacation policy, and generous parental leave. **Compensation and Values** At Horizon3, we believe that our people are our greatest asset, and our compensation philosophy reflects this core value. We are committed to fostering an environment where all employees feel valued, respected, and rewarded for their contributions. Our compensation structure is designed to be fair, competitive, and transparent, ensuring that every team member is recognized and compensated equitably across roles, levels, and locations. In accordance with various State’s transparency regulations, we provide the following salary range information for this position: - **Base salary range: $225,250 – $265,000 annually**. The exact salary will be determined based on the selected candidate’s location, qualifications, experience, and relevant skills. - Additional compensation: All full-time roles are eligible for an equity package in the form of stock options. **You Belong Here** Horizon3 is not just an equal opportunity employer - we are a community that values diversity, equity, and inclusion as fundamental principles of our culture and success. We are dedicated to fostering a workplace where everyone feels welcome and respected, regardless of race, color, religion, sex, national origin, age, disability, veteran status, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, genetic information, marital status, or any other legally protected status by law. Our commitment to diversity and inclusion means we strive to attract, develop, and retain a workforce that reflects the varied communities we serve. We believe that diverse perspectives drive innovation and strengthen our ability to create cutting-edge cybersecurity solutions. At Horizon3, every team member is valued and supported in an environment that encourages personal and professional growth. We welcome candidates from all backgrounds and experiences, and we encourage all qualified individuals to apply. Come be a part of Horizon3, where your unique contributions are recognized, and your potential is limitless. **Other Duties** Please note this job description is not designed to cover or contain a comprehensive listing of activities, duties or responsibilities that are required of the employee. Duties, responsibilities, and activities may change at any time with or without notice.