Senior Director, Engineering, Precision Defense

Horizon3

1d•$270,000 - $365,000•Remote

About The Position

The Senior Director of Engineering for Precision Defense will set engineering direction and build the organization that turns NodeZero's offensive capabilities into proactive, actionable defense. The role leads three connected pillars: Tripwires and Deception, Security Controls Validation, and Blue Team Agents. These teams help customers design defenses, test whether they work, and detect attacker activity that passes the perimeter. The Senior Director will translate the Precision Defense charter into an executable engineering strategy, scale teams and leadership, and deliver dependable defensive engineering capabilities, integrations, and AI-enabled workflows. The role partners closely with Product, Engineering leaders, and other company teams to focus investment, manage dependencies, and deliver customer outcomes. Horizon3 is a fast-growing, fully remote cybersecurity company. The role may require up to 15% travel. The stated base salary range is $270,000–$365,000 annually, with the exact salary based on location, qualifications, experience, and relevant skills. Full-time roles are eligible for stock options.

Requirements

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 of 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, with the ability to engage credibly in architecture and design discussions.
Sound judgment about AI- or agent-enabled products' limitations, verification, and safe operation.
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 Haves

Experience with AI- or agent-enabled products in production.
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).

Responsibilities

Lead and scale the Precision Defense engineering organization.
Turn the organization's charter into a clear technical strategy, operating model, and sequenced roadmap that balances near-term customer value with durable platform and team foundations.
Build an effective leadership structure, 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, evaluating tradeoffs, challenging assumptions, and ensuring systems can evolve as the portfolio expands.
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 could undermine delivery or quality.
Work with Product, the broader NodeZero engineering organization, and customer-facing teams to connect technical plans to customer needs and company priorities.