Staff Application Security Engineer

Bitwise Asset Management•San Francisco, CA

1d•$185,000 - $260,000•Onsite

About The Position

Our engineering organization is growing, and with that growth comes an expanding application and infrastructure footprint that requires dedicated application security ownership. This role exists to build that function from the ground up. As our first dedicated Staff Application Security Engineer, you will own the design and implementation of our application security program, from SAST and DAST tooling to secure SDLC practices, threat modeling, dependency security, and penetration testing coordination. You will work directly with engineering teams across a cloud-based environment securing both customer-facing products and internal systems. You will be reporting directly to the Head of Security and will have the autonomy and organizational support to build an application security program that is practical, scalable, and aligned to the risk profile of a company operating in the digital asset space.

Requirements

7+ years of experience in application security or a closely related discipline
Demonstrated experience building or significantly maturing an application security program
Deep hands-on experience with SAST and DAST tooling implementation and management
Strong knowledge of secure SDLC practices and CI/CD pipeline security integration
Experience with dependency scanning and software supply chain security
Proficiency in threat modeling methodologies (STRIDE, PASTA, or equivalent)
Experience managing or coordinating third-party penetration testing engagements
Solid understanding of secrets management solutions (e.g., HashiCorp Vault, AWS Secrets Manager, or equivalent)
Strong written and verbal communication skills — able to document findings and present risk clearly to both technical and non-technical audiences

Responsibilities

Own the full implementation of SAST tooling across all codebases and CI/CD pipelines
Own the full implementation of DAST tooling across all customer-facing and internal applications
Establish baseline findings, prioritize remediation, and work directly with engineering to resolve issues
Maintain and tune tooling over time as the codebase and attack surface evolve
Define and enforce a secure software development lifecycle across engineering teams
Establish secure release processes including code signing and build integrity verification
Develop and maintain security standards, guidelines, and secure coding practices
Integrate security checkpoints throughout the development pipeline without creating unnecessary friction for engineering
Lead threat modeling exercises for new infrastructure designs, features, and system changes
Ensure all customer-facing and internal applications are fully documented and threat modeled
Maintain a living inventory of the company's attack surface and ensure it reflects current architecture
Implement and manage dependency scanning across all projects
Enforce version pinning policies to reduce exposure from uncontrolled dependency updates
Deploy and manage supply chain security tooling (e.g., Socket.dev or equivalent) to monitor for malicious or compromised dependencies
Establish a process for ongoing dependency review and remediation
Define and maintain a penetration testing program covering all surface areas — applications, APIs, internal tooling, and infrastructure
Scope, schedule, and manage third-party penetration testing engagements
Track findings through to remediation and validate fixes
Design and implement a secrets management program across cloud infrastructure and engineering workflows
Eliminate hardcoded credentials and secrets from codebases
Establish policies and tooling for secrets rotation, access control, and audit logging
Implement fuzz testing across applicable components, particularly APIs and input-handling logic
Ensure coverage gaps in the attack surface are identified, documented, and addressed systematically