Senior Director, Engineering, Precision Defense

Job description

**Get to Know Us** [Horizon3](http://Horizon3.ai) is a fast-growing, remote cybersecurity company dedicated to the mission of enabling organizations to proactively find, 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 IT Ops/SecOps teams, consulting pentesters, and MSSPs and MSPs. We are a fusion of former U.S. Special Operations cyber operators, startup engineers & operators, and formerly frustrated cybersecurity practitioners. We're committed to helping solve our common security problems: ineffective security tools and 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. ## What You'll Do As Senior Director of Engineering for Precision Defense, you'll set engineering direction and build the organization that turns NodeZero's offensive capabilities into proactive, actionable defense. You will lead across three connected pillars: Tripwires and Deception, Security Controls Validation, and Blue Team Agents. Together, these teams help customers design their defenses, test whether they work, and detect attacker activity that makes it past the perimeter. You'll translate the Precision Defense charter into an executable engineering strategy, scale teams and leadership, and deliver dependable capabilities across defensive engineering, integrations, and AI-enabled workflows. You'll partner closely with Product, leaders across Engineering and the company to focus investment, manage dependencies, and deliver customer outcomes. ## Key Responsibilities ### Organization Leadership & Strategy - Lead and scale the Precision Defense engineering organization - Turn the organization's charter into a clear technical strategy, operating model, and sequenced roadmap, balancing near-term customer value with durable platform and team foundations. - Build an effective leadership structure as the organization grows, developing engineering managers, technical leads, and senior individual contributors with clear ownership and accountability. - Establish goals and operating mechanisms that make progress, quality, staffing needs, and risks visible across multiple teams. - Partner with technical leads on architecture and design, bringing sufficient depth to evaluate tradeoffs, challenge assumptions, and ensure systems can evolve as the portfolio expands. ### Product & Portfolio Execution - Partner with Product and engineering leaders to prioritize work across emerging-threat response, offensive engineering, deception, security-control validation, and agent-driven remediation. - Translate ambiguous goals into focused plans with explicit scope, measurable outcomes, and well-managed cross-team dependencies. - Ensure engineering investment supports a coherent customer experience—from understanding exposure and testing defenses to taking safe, practical action. - Surface tradeoffs early, communicate decisions clearly, and protect teams from competing priorities that would undermine delivery or quality. - Work closely with Product, the broader NodeZero engineering organization, and customer-facing teams to connect technical plans to customer needs and company priorities. ## What You'll Bring - Significant experience leading SaaS or cloud service engineering organizations that deliver complex software products, including scaling teams through managers and technical leaders. - A track record setting engineering strategy and delivering across multiple teams or product areas in a fast-moving environment. - Strong technical judgment in cloud software, distributed systems, platform engineering, or similarly complex production environments—and the ability to engage credibly in architecture and design discussions. - Experience with AI- or agent-enabled products in production is valuable; sound judgment about their limitations, verification, and safe operation is essential. - Demonstrated ability to turn ambiguous objectives into sequenced execution, manage scope and dependencies, and communicate risks and tradeoffs clearly. - Experience partnering closely with Product and cross-functional stakeholders to align engineering investment with customer and business outcomes. - A people-first leadership approach, with experience hiring, coaching, and developing high-performing teams across disciplines. - Excellent written and verbal communication, sound judgment, and a high degree of ownership and accountability. - Bachelor's or Master's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related field, or equivalent practical experience. ## Nice to have - Familiarity with security engineering, offensive security, vulnerability response, detection, or security-control validation. - Experience leading engineering in cybersecurity, penetration testing, security operations, or defensive security products. - Background spanning offensive security and defensive control platforms, such as endpoint, identity, network, or data security. - Experience building agent platforms or product workflows that connect detection, decision-making, and verified remediation. - Experience scaling a product organization from an early-stage team into multiple delivery teams. - Experience building strategic technical partnerships or working with managed security service providers (MSSPs). ## Travel Required We are a fully remote company, and this job may require up to 15% of travel to be successful. ## Compensation and Benefits 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: $270,000 - $365,000 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. **Perks of** [**Horizon3**](http://Horizon3.ai) - 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. **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, hair length 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. **Application Note** In any materials you submit, you may redact or remove age-identifying information such as age, date of birth, or dates of school attendance or graduation. You will not be penalized for redacting or removing this information.