Director of Security Engineering

About this role

WHAT SUCCESS LOOKS LIKE - FIRST 12 MONTHS

• Deliver a unified security engineering roadmap aligned with engineering leadership.
• Mature secure SDLC adoption across Web and Data Engineering.
• Improve MTTD and MTTR through stronger SOC operations.
• Invest in and mentor a team with clear ownership, KPIs and engineering trust.
• Reduce engineering friction by creating pragmatic developer-friendly guardrails.

SECURITY STRATEGY & ENGINEERING INTEGRATION

• Define and own business' technical security strategy across products, data platforms, fusion engine, pipelines and the corporate estate.
• Act as a strategic partner to Product and Technology leadership teams.
• Lead Secure SDLC strategy including threat modelling, CI/CD security and vulnerability management.
• Partner with engineering leadership on software supply chain risk management.
• Work with the Director of IT Operations to strengthen corporate security posture while enabling innovation.

DATA & AI SECURITY

• Partner with the VP of Data Engineering to secure enrichment engines, pipelines and warehouse ecosystems.
• Drive access governance, data classification, secrets management and data protection across the full data lifecycle.
• Define how AI, LLMs and agentic workflows are adopted securely.
• Partner with the CISO to implement a proactive AI security strategy.

DETECTION, RESPONSE & SOC PARTNERSHIP

• Own the strategic relationship with the outsourced 24/7 SOC.
• Ensure continuous SIEM improvement and alignment with evolving threats.
• Build robust incident response playbooks, escalation paths and lessons-learned processes.

TEAM & CULTURE

• Lead application and infrastructure security engineering teams.
• Build a culture where developers engage with security early and own remediation outcomes.
• Act as a trusted, credible and collaborative security leader across engineering.

LEADERSHIP & INFLUENCE

• Demonstrated experience building or transforming security programmes in product-led organisations.
• Track record of influencing engineering culture and earning trust.
• Experience managing SOC providers, penetration testing partners and external security vendors.
• Ability to communicate risk effectively to both technical and executive audiences.

TECHNICAL FOUNDATION

• Strong Application Security expertise including OWASP, API Security, SAST, DAST and threat modelling.
• Hands-on understanding of data security, cloud data warehouses and pipeline integrity.
• Cloud security expertise including IAM, Kubernetes, containers and cloud-native tooling.
• Working knowledge of AI and LLM security risks, controls and governance.

MINDSET

• Risk-based decision making.
• Builder mentality focused on outcomes and continuous improvement.
• Curiosity for AI and emerging technology security.

About security roles for ex-police

Security management, operations and consultancy roles. Years of operational policing — command, incident response, public order — translate directly into corporate security, and employers in this sector actively rate police experience.