Principal Infrastructure Security Engineer

Ridgeline; Dublin; On-site; EUR 140,000 - 190,000; Full time

Job summary

Ridgeline is seeking a Principal Infrastructure Security Engineer to set the architecture vision for cloud and infrastructure security across all product lines and environments. You will define security invariants and drive improvements that shape engineering decisions.

You will work with engineering and leadership to balance security with business needs, develop staff-level engineers, and build reusable security frameworks and automation across teams.

Qualifications

• 10+ years in cloud security or platform engineering.
• Advanced Python proficiency; Kotlin or TypeScript a plus.
• Experience leading enterprise-wide security initiatives with cross-functional impact.
• Deep knowledge of AWS IAM, VPCs, EKS/ECS, S3 and CloudWatch.

Responsibilities

• Own multi-year cloud security architecture vision across all product lines and environments.
• Define tooling and automation strategy, including AI in security operations.
• Drive AWS guardrails, IAM boundaries, policy-as-code and enforce standards.
• Develop threat models and identify emerging threats to identity, data, and infrastructure.
• Deliver large cross-team projects with high quality and clear milestones.

Skills

Cloud security architecture

AWS security

Kubernetes security

Infrastructure as code

Leadership of security teams

Python

Executive communication

Tools

AWS

Terraform

OpenTofu

Kubernetes (EKS)

ArgoCD

Cosign

Job description

Principal Infrastructure Security Engineer

Location: Dublin, IE

Ridgeline is hiring a Principal Infrastructure Security Engineer to set the direction for cloud and infrastructure security across every product line, account, and environment. You will define the architecture vision and the security invariants that guide engineering decisions, and you will be accountable for Ridgeline’s overall cloud security posture.

You will work with Engineering, Product Management, and Technology leaders on cloud security trade-offs that carry business, regulatory, or reputational consequences. You will also help build the team's technical culture and develop Staff-level engineers, so that its standards, detection frameworks, and architectural judgment last beyond any single project. We believe in a culture where security is everyone's responsibility and an integral part of our engineering philosophy.

At Ridgeline, how we work matters as much as what we build. Ridgeliners act like owners, choose growth over comfort, and communicate with transparency. We assume positive intent, bias toward action, and bring solutions—not just problems. We celebrate wins, learn from setbacks, and thrive in a resilient, collaborative, high-performing culture.

You must be permitted to work in Ireland, including under EU work authorization, without the need for employer sponsorship.

What You’ll Do

• Own the multi-year cloud security architecture vision and the security invariants that govern engineering decisions across all product lines, AWS accounts, and infrastructure.
• Set the technical strategy for cloud security tooling and automation, including how AI changes security operations, and make the build-versus-buy decisions that determine what the team can do for years.
• Drive company-wide guardrails and controls in our AWS environment (e.g., SCPs, IAM boundaries, AWS managed security services, custom-built solutions, and policy-as-code), and implement the standards and processes that keep them enforced.
• Develop threat models and security approaches, and identify emerging threats to identity, data, AI workloads, and infrastructure before they become problems.
• Create frameworks and methodologies for securely integrating third-party cloud services and internal platforms, and see them adopted across Ridgeline.
• Anticipate broad changes in cloud and infrastructure security, identify where our current approach stops scaling, and propose fixes before it does.
• Build AI and automation frameworks, and partner across functions to deploy reusable agents that multiple teams use.
• Deliver large, cross-team projects on schedule and at high quality, breaking complex programs into pieces the contributing teams can execute.
• Build the cloud security team's long-term technical culture, develop Staff-level cloud security engineers, and sponsor the next leaders at Ridgeline.
• Shape C-suite and board-level decisions on cloud security investment, cloud adoption strategy, and organizational risk acceptance.

Who You Are & What Makes You Qualified

• 10+ years of relevant experience in cloud security or platform engineering, including experience leading large cross-team initiatives with company-wide impact and delivering them on schedule.
• Advanced proficiency in at least one high-level language (Python strongly preferred; Kotlin or TypeScript a plus).
• Expert-level experience with AWS, especially in the following areas:
• Identity and Access Management (IAM, Orgs & SCPs, Identity Center)
• Networking (VPC, Security Groups, Transit Gateway, Load Balancers, Network Firewall)
• Compute (EKS, ECS, Lambda)
• Data Persistence (S3, Aurora, DynamoDB)
• Logging & Monitoring (GuardDuty, CloudTrail, CloudWatch)
• Demonstrated success defining enterprise-wide access management strategy and policy frameworks (IAM/SCPs), and cloud security architecture that engineering teams adopted.
• Deep understanding of cloud workload protection, infrastructure monitoring, and threat detection in AWS-native environments.
• Expert-level experience securing Kubernetes and Amazon EKS (including EKS Auto Mode): cluster access control, network policy, Istio service mesh, Kyverno admission policy, and image signing with cosign.
• Fluency with infrastructure-as-code (e.g., OpenTofu or Terraform), GitOps delivery (e.g., ArgoCD), and CI/CD practices, and experience setting tooling and automation strategy, including build-versus-buy decisions.
• Proven ability to present cloud security risk and trade-offs to executives, and to influence investment, cloud adoption, and risk acceptance decisions.
• Track record of anticipating broad change in cloud security and acting on it before it became urgent.
• Experience building AI or automation frameworks and reusable agents that change how cross-functional teams work.
• Experience developing senior engineers and sponsoring emerging leaders, and building team standards, detection frameworks, and architectural judgment that outlast individual projects.

About Ridgeline

Ridgeline is headquartered in Lake Tahoe, with offices in New York, Reno, the Bay Area, Dublin Ireland. Ridgeline is recognized by Fast Company as a “Best Workplace for Innovators,” by Frost & Sullivan as a “Technology Innovation Leader,” and by The Software Report as a “Top 100 Software Company.”

Ridgeline is proud to be a community-minded, discrimination-free equal opportunity workplace.

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