Director: Technology - Web Application Firewall (WAF)

FINRA • Rockville, MD

3d • $154,400 - $299,600 • Hybrid

About The Position

The Director is generally autonomous in their oversight and active management for a Technology program and/or practice area and most often reports directly to a Senior Director or Vice President. This role leads the strategy, engineering, and operations of enterprise Web Application Firewall (WAF) protection, Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) and Certificate lifecycle management, secure software development, and public cloud platform, ensuring applications and APIs are protected across on-premises and cloud environments while adopting emerging and evolving AI capabilities.

Requirements

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Information Systems or related discipline with at least ten (10) years of related experience, or equivalent training and / or work experience; Master’s degree and past Financial Services industry experience preferred.
• Minimum of 5 years of technical project, program and / or practice area oversight.
• Past experience influencing decisions and building conscience across internal and external partners
• Knowledge of business, technology and management principles involved in strategic planning, organizational change management, resource allocation, human resources modeling, leadership technique, and coordination of people and resources.
• Experience must include direct experience in one of the following areas: strategy, software development, operations, engineering, development services, information security, and / or compliance.
• Extensive knowledge of industry leading technology best practices including familiarity with technology methodologies including at least one of ISO-9000, ITIL, Agile and iterative.
• Excellent written and verbal technical communication skills.
• Demonstrated ability to develop effective working relationships and leverage those relationships to improve the quality of work products.
• Must be able to identify, evaluate and recommend processes, tools, technologies and / or products to meet business and budgetary requirements.
• Should be well organized, thorough, and able to handle competing priorities.
• Ability to maintain focus and develop proficiency in new skills rapidly.
• Ability to work in a fast paced environment.

Nice To Haves

• Master’s degree and past Financial Services industry experience preferred.

Responsibilities

• Directly manage and/or influence separate teams focused on delivering high quality results within one or more major technology disciplines: strategy, software development, operations, engineering, development services, information security, and compliance.
• Own the strategy, architecture, and day-to-day operations of the enterprise Web Application Firewall (WAF) program, including rule tuning, policy management, false-positive reduction, DDoS/bot mitigation, and protection of internet-facing and internal applications.
• Direct the Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) practice, including certificate authority (CA) operations, certificate lifecycle management and automation, key management, HSM administration, TLS/mTLS standards, and code-signing services.
• Evaluate and responsibly adopt evolving AI capabilities (e.g., generative AI, AI-assisted development, and AI-driven security tooling) to improve engineering productivity, threat detection, and operational efficiency, while managing associated security, privacy, and governance risks.
• Focus on coordination with internal and external partners to deliver methods, procedures, practices, documents and results to increase reliability and usability of technology while optimizing costs and return on investment.
• Deliver results based upon FINRA annual goals, department goals and management requests.
• Direct and coordinate organization's financial and budget activities to fund operations, maximize investments, and increase efficiency for a program, project and/or practice area.
• Provides leadership in technology best practices, including application security, cryptography, secure software engineering, cloud security, and responsible AI adoption best practices.
• Analyze information and evaluate results to choose the best solutions and solve problems.
• Support the evaluation of new technologies, techniques, and tools across WAF, PKI/cryptography, and associated AI.
• Report status and issues to senior Technology management team.
• Work directly with outside vendors to negotiate services and product agreements, including WAF, certificate authority, security, and AI security tooling providers.
• Serve on as backup to more senior level management as needed.
• Develop constructive and cooperative working relationships with peers both within and outside of Technology, and maintain them over time.
• Contribute to the establishment, evolution and continued compliance with standard practices and processes within the disciplines.
• Assist with adherence to technology policies and comply with all security controls, including cryptographic standards, certificate governance, cloud security controls, and AI usage policies.
• Ensure all work products meets /exceeds FINRA standards and risks are effectively managed.
• Participate in periodic Disaster Recovery (DR), Business Continuity Planning (BCP) and Sarbanes Oxley (SOX) testing and reporting, including certificate expiry, key recovery, and WAF failover scenarios.
• Identify and hire resource/skills needed within their organization, including WAF engineers, PKI/cryptography specialists, software developers, and cloud security engineers.
• Responsible for staff performance management and training.
• Coordinate assignment of subordinate staff.
• Demonstration of FINRA's values.
• Collaboration, both in-person and virtually, in furtherance of FINRA's mission of investor protection and market integrity.

Benefits

• discretionary bonus
• overtime pay
• health insurance
• dental insurance
• vision insurance
• basic life insurance
• accidental death and dismemberment insurance
• supplemental life insurance
• spouse/domestic partner and dependent life insurance
• spouse/domestic partner and dependent accidental death and dismemberment insurance
• short-term disability insurance
• long-term disability insurance
• long-term care insurance
• business travel accident insurance
• disability insurance
• legal insurance
• 401(k) plan with company match
• FINRA-funded retirement contribution
• tuition reimbursement
• commuter benefits
• adoption assistance
• backup family care
• surrogacy benefits
• employee assistance program
• wellness programs
• 15 days of paid time off (increasing with years of service, up to 25 days)
• 5 personal days
• 9 sick days
• two volunteer service days
• military leave
• jury duty leave
• bereavement leave
• voting and election official leave
• care of a family member leave
• childbirth and parental leave
• nine paid holidays

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Director