Title: Head of Security
Location: Irving, Texas, hybrid / on-site 3 days per week
Employment: Full-time
ABOUT THE ROLEA private applied technology organization is hiring a hands-on Head of Security to build and mature security within a highly technical engineering environment. This is a greenfield leadership role for someone who can assess the current state, define a practical roadmap, and embed security into how products are designed, built, tested, deployed, and operated.
This role is best suited for a security builder who has earned credibility with engineers and can translate security architecture into usable controls. The environment is fast-moving, technical, and product-oriented, with a focus on advanced engineering, compute-intensive platforms, AI-enabled workflows, data, modeling, and production readiness.
RESPONSIBILITIES- Benchmark the current security posture across people, process, technology, and engineering practices.
- Build and execute a security maturity roadmap aligned to engineering and business priorities.
- Establish DevSecOps practices across CI/CD, code review, secrets, dependency management, and release workflows.
- Lead secure SDLC adoption, including threat modeling, secure design reviews, and practical release gates.
- Define security architecture across cloud, infrastructure, applications, identity, endpoints, and data protection.
- Build guardrails for AI-enabled development, autonomous workflows, and product security risk.
- Support SOC 2 readiness and customer trust initiatives.
- Partner with engineering, security, and executive stakeholders to create scalable security practices without slowing innovation.
QUALIFICATIONS- 8+ years of security experience, including senior-level ownership of a security program, architecture function, product security function, or DevSecOps capability.
- Demonstrated experience working directly with engineering teams in a technical product environment.
- Hands-on security architecture and implementation experience.
- Strong DevSecOps background across pipeline security, SAST, DAST, SCA, container scanning, infrastructure-as-code scanning, and secrets detection.
- Experience with cloud and infrastructure security in modern hybrid environments.
- Strong understanding of application security, threat modeling, secure release practices, and vulnerability management.
- SOC 2 readiness or certification experience.
- Ability to build strategy and still work close to implementation.
- Strong written and verbal communication with engineers, executives, and customer-facing stakeholders.
- Ability to operate independently in an ambiguous, early-stage security environment.
PREFERRED EXPERIENCE- Experience with AI security, autonomous workflows, AI coding tools, or security controls for AI-enabled products.
- Experience with modern endpoint, identity, SIEM, DLP, CNAPP, and cloud security tooling.
- Background in advanced engineering, simulation, data-intensive platforms, scientific computing, or highly technical R&D environments.
- Familiarity with NIST, ISO 27001, CIS, OWASP, or AI risk frameworks.
- Experience creating security artifacts for enterprise customer trust.
How We Work- Engineering-first, pragmatic, and highly collaborative.
- Security is expected to enable product delivery, not create unnecessary friction.
- The role requires ownership, hands-on judgment, and executive-level communication.
- The environment values intellectual curiosity, technical depth, and practical execution.
- The right person will be comfortable building structure where little exists today.