Principal Security Awareness & Human Risk Engineer

GitLab; Canada; On-site; CAD 208,000 - 319,000; Full time

Job summary

GitLab is seeking a Principal Security Awareness & Human Risk Engineer to lead the global security awareness and education program within the Security Assurance team. This strategic individual contributor role focuses on reducing human-related security risk and embedding a security culture across a distributed organization.

You’ll own content across annual, new-hire, role-based, and executive learning, run phishing simulations end to end, and apply behavior-change principles to reinforce secure

Qualifications

• Minimum 10 years building global awareness programs in large enterprises.
• Experience running enterprise phishing programs and awareness campaigns.
• Experience evaluating and consolidating security training vendors.

Responsibilities

• Own and evolve global security awareness programs across annual, new-hire, role-based and executive content.
• Lead phishing simulations end to end: design, deployment, analysis, follow-up.
• Apply behavior-change principles to reinforce secure habits.
• Build security culture through campaigns and ongoing engagement.
• Produce multimedia content and administer training platforms with end-to-end reporting.
• Define KPIs and report to Security Assurance leadership.
• Manage vendor relationships for training and video production.
• Collaborate on security policies, standards, and audit evidence.

Skills

SSAP certification

Phishing programs

Security awareness

Vendor management

Security policy development

Influence strategy

Remote collaboration

Job description

Principal Security Awareness & Human Risk Engineer

Remote, Canada; Remote, United Kingdom; Remote, United States

GitLab is the intelligent orchestration platform for DevSecOps. GitLab enables organizations to increase developer productivity, improve operational efficiency, reduce security and compliance risk, and accelerate digital transformation. More than 50 million registered users and more than 50% of the Fortune 100* trust GitLab to ship better, more secure software faster.

The same principles built into our products are reflected in how our team works: we embrace AI as a core productivity multiplier, with all team members expected to incorporate AI into their daily workflows to drive efficiency, innovation, and impact. GitLab is where careers accelerate, innovation flourishes, and every voice is valued. Our high-performance culture is driven by our valuesand continuous knowledge exchange, enabling our team members to reach their full potential while collaborating with industry leaders to solve complex problems. Co-create the future with us as we build technology that transforms how the world develops software.

*Fortune 500® is a registered trademark of Fortune Media IP Limited, used under license. Claim based on GitLab data. Fortune 100 refers to the top 20% ranked companies in the 2025 Fortune 500 list, published in June 2025. Fortune and Fortune Media IP Limited are not affiliated with, and do not endorse products or services of GitLab.

An overview of this role

The Principal Security Awareness & Human Risk Engineer is a strategic individual contributor role within GitLab's Security Assurance team. The role owns GitLab's global security awareness and education program and drives measurable reduction in human-related security risk — moving the program beyond completion-rate compliance toward sustained behavior change and embedded security culture.

What You’ll Do

• Own and evolve the global security awareness and education program, spanning annual, new-hire, role-based, targeted, executive, and microlearning content.
• Lead the phishing simulation program end to end — design, deployment, analysis, and targeted follow-up.
• Apply behavior change principles to reinforce secure habits and address priority risk behaviors.
• Build and sustain security culture through learning campaigns, Security Awareness Month, and ongoing engagement.
• Produce multimedia awareness and education content, including video.
• Administer the training and phishing platforms, owning program data and reporting end to end.
• Define and report performance indicators to Security Assurance leadership.
• Own vendor relationships for phishing, secure coding (OWASP) training, and video production.
• Lead market and competitor evaluations, renewal decisions, and cost negotiation, recommending in-house builds where commercial options underperform.
• Collaborate on and maintain security policies, standards, and procedures.
• Coordinate audit evidence and demonstrate control effectiveness.
• Track remediation of identified gaps to closure.

What You’ll Bring

• A minimum of 10 years' experience building or scaling global awareness and human-risk programs in a large, globally distributed enterprise, with measurable outcomes; regulated-industry experience preferred.
• SANS Security Awareness Professional (SSAP) certification, or equivalent demonstrated expertise in building, maintaining, and measuring a mature awareness program.
• Demonstrated experience running enterprise-scale phishing programs and organization-wide awareness campaigns.
• Track record of evaluating, selecting, consolidating, or replacing security training vendors, including cost and value analysis.
• Working knowledge of security policy development, audit support, and control evidence.
• Ability to influence enterprise strategy across technical and non-technical teams without formal authority.
• Ability to make complex security topics practical and engaging in an all-remote organization.
• Track record of onboarding, managing, and negotiating with third party vendors.

About the team

The Security Assurance organization helps GitLab build and maintain trust by strengthening how we approach security, compliance, and risk across the company. The Security Risk team sits within that group and owns third-party risk (TPRM), security risk assessments, and remediation of security findings. The Security Risk Team performs thorough, collaborative, and efficient risk assessments as well as drive risk reduction so that GitLab can achieve its goals while maintaining a high level of security. Security Risk counterparts are Security Compliance, Security Governance and Security Enablement functions.

Base salary range for this role’s listed level is currently for residents of the United States only. This range is intended to reflect the role's base salary rate in locations throughout the US. Grade level and salary ranges are determined through interviews and a review of education, experience, knowledge, skills, abilities of the applicant, equity with other team members, alignment with market data,and geographic location. The base salary range does not include any bonuses, equity, or benefits. See more information on our benefits and equity. Sales roles are also eligible for incentive pay targeted at up to 100% of the offered base salary.

Country Hiring Guidelines: GitLab hires new team members in countries around the world. All of our roles are remote, however some roles may carry specific location-based eligibility requirements. Our Talent Acquisition team can help answer any questions about location after starting the recruiting process.

GitLab is proud to be an equal opportunity workplace and is an affirmative action employer. GitLab’s policies and practices relating to recruitment, employment, career development and advancement, promotion, and retirement are based solely on merit, regardless of race, color, religion, ancestry, sex (including pregnancy, lactation, sexual orientation, gender identity, or gender expression), national origin, age, citizenship, marital status, mental or physical disability, genetic information (including family medical history), discharge status from the military, protected veteran status (which includes disabled veterans, recently separated veterans, active duty wartime or campaign badge veterans, and Armed Forces service medal veterans), or any other basis protected by law. GitLab will not tolerate discrimination or harassment based on any of these characteristics. See also GitLab’s EEO Policy and EEO is the Law. If you have a disability or special need that requires accommodation, please let us know during the recruiting process.