Application Security | Application Security Engineer

PepsiCo; Plano (TX); On-site; USD 80,000 - 134,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Medical benefits

Dental benefits

Vision benefits

Disability insurance

401(k) retirement plan

Employee Assistance Program

Job summary

PepsiCo is seeking an experienced application security professional to implement and operate foundational controls, optimize tooling, and enable automation at scale. You will improve signal quality, reduce false positives, and guide developers in remediating critical risks across cloud-native apps in AWS/Azure/GCP.

You will tune scanners, manage WAF/CDN security, and participate in Agile delivery. The role requires knowledge of SAST/DAST/SCA, policy-as-code, and secure DevOps practices to

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in computer science, Engineering, or a related technical field, with 3-4 years of relevant professional experiences or equivalent in job experience.
• Experience with secure software development and identifying vulnerabilities within application code.
• Experience analyzing application security findings and providing actionable remediation guidance.
• Hands-on experience with application security, vulnerability management, and security engineering.
• Experience securing cloud-native applications in AWS (preferred), Azure, or GCP.

Responsibilities

• Configure, tune, and maintain application security tools to maximize accuracy, coverage, and performance.
• Establish and maintain security baselines, policies, and scanning rules aligned with organizational standards.
• Improve finding quality by reducing false positives and ensuring results accurately reflect business risk.
• Develop and maintain risk-based prioritization models to focus remediation on the highest-impact vulnerabilities.
• Integrate security tool outputs into centralized vulnerability management workflows.
• Validate findings, investigate false positives, and track remediation through closure.
• Partner with engineering teams to implement security guardrails and secure development practices.
• Continuously evaluate and optimize security tooling, processes, and platform effectiveness.
• Perform targeted security assessments of high-risk applications to identify coverage gaps and critical vulnerabilities.
• Manage and optimize Web Application Firewall (WAF) and CDN security capabilities, including DDoS protection, bot mitigation, and traffic management.
• Evaluate emerging security technologies and recommend improvements to increase automation, coverage, and operational efficiency.
• Develop and maintain technical documentation, operational runbooks, and security standards.
• Support vulnerability response, remediation activities, and application security incident investigations.
• Participate in Agile development, including sprint planning, backlog refinement, estimation, stand-ups, and retrospectives.
• Develop metrics and KPIs to measure program effectiveness and drive continuous improvement.
• Participate in a 24/7 on-call rotation, including weekends and holidays.

Skills

Secure software development

Vulnerability remediation guidance

Cloud security (AWS/Azure/GCP)

Python or Go

CI/CD security integration

API security (OAuth, JWT)

WAF security

Policy-as-Code (OPA, Sentinel)

CDN and DDoS basics

Cryptography fundamentals

Education

Bachelor’s degree in CS, Engineering, or related field

Tools

SAST tools

SCA tools

DAST tools

WAF configuration

CI/CD tooling

Job description

Overview

PepsiCo’s Global Application Security Program integrates security into software development at enterprise scale. Our mission is to make application security risks visible, actionable, and measurable so they can be remediated efficiently.

This role is responsible for implementing and operating foundational application security controls, optimizing security tooling, and enabling security automation at scale. The ideal candidate will improve signal quality, reduce false positives, and help developers remediate the risks that matter most.

Responsibilities

• Configure, tune, and maintain application security tools to maximize accuracy, coverage, and performance.
• Establish and maintain security baselines, policies, and scanning rules aligned with organizational standards.
• Improve finding quality by reducing false positives and ensuring results accurately reflect business risk.
• Develop and maintain risk-based prioritization models to focus remediation on the highest-impact vulnerabilities.
• Integrate security tool outputs into centralized vulnerability management workflows.
• Validate findings, investigate false positives, and track remediation through closure.
• Partner with engineering teams to implement security guardrails and secure development practices.
• Continuously evaluate and optimize security tooling, processes, and platform effectiveness.
• Perform targeted security assessments of high-risk applications to identify coverage gaps and critical vulnerabilities.
• Manage and optimize Web Application Firewall (WAF) and CDN security capabilities, including DDoS protection, bot mitigation, and traffic management.
• Evaluate emerging security technologies and recommend improvements to increase automation, coverage, and operational efficiency.
• Develop and maintain technical documentation, operational runbooks, and security standards.
• Support vulnerability response, remediation activities, and application security incident investigations.
• Participate in Agile development, including sprint planning, backlog refinement, estimation, stand-ups, and retrospectives.
• Develop metrics and KPIs to measure program effectiveness and drive continuous improvement.
• Participate in a 24/7 on-call rotation, including weekends and holidays.

Compensation and Benefits

• The expected compensation range for this position is between $80,200 - $134,250.
• Location, confirmed job-related skills, experience, and education will be considered in setting actual starting salary. Your recruiter can share more about the specific salary range during the hiring process.
• Bonus based on performance and eligibility target payout is 8% of annual salary paid out annually.
• Paid time off subject to eligibility, including paid parental leave, vacation, sick, and bereavement.
• In addition to salary, PepsiCo offers a comprehensive benefits package to support our employees and their families, subject to elections and eligibility: Medical, Dental, Vision, Disability, Health, and Dependent Care Reimbursement Accounts, Employee Assistance Program (EAP), Insurance (Accident, Group Legal, Life), Defined Contribution Retirement Plan.

Qualifications

Years of Experience

Bachelor’s degree in computer science, Engineering, or a related technical field, with 3-4 years of relevant professional experiences or equivalent in job experience

Mandatory Technical Skills

• Experience with secure software development and identifying vulnerabilities within application code.
• Experience analyzing application security findings and providing actionable remediation guidance.
• Hands-on experience with application security, vulnerability management, and security engineering.
• Experience securing cloud-native applications in AWS (preferred), Azure, or GCP.
• Proficiency with Python and/or Go.
• Experience with SAST, SCA, Secrets, DAST, API, and Container security tools.
• Experience tuning security scanners and reducing false positives, including OWASP Top 10 findings.
• Experience deploying, configuring, and managing Web Application Firewalls (WAFs).
• Knowledge of Policy-as-Code frameworks (OPA, HashiCorp Sentinel, or similar).
• Strong understanding of web and mobile application security, including the OWASP Top 10, SSRF, RCE, deserialization, and memory corruption vulnerabilities.
• Familiarity with securing CI/CD pipelines and integrating security into development workflows.
• Understanding of API security, including OAuth, JWT, authentication, authorization, and access control.
• Understanding of CDN security, including DDoS protection, bot mitigation, rate limiting, and caching.
• Understanding of cryptographic principles, key management, and encryption best practices.

Non-technical Skills

• Strong written and verbal communication skills.
• High integrity with sound judgement and accountability.
• Excellent analytical, problem-solving, and critical thinking abilities.
• Self-motivated, curious, and committed to continuous learning.
• Strong collaboration, relationship-building, and influencing skills.
• Comfortable working in a fast-paced, global environment with changing priorities and ambiguity.
• Ability to perform effectively under pressure.

Differentiating Behaviors

• Demonstrates curiosity, innovation, and a continuous improvement mindset.
• Makes sound decisions by balancing technical, business, and operational trade-offs.
• Remains calm, organized, and methodical in high-pressure situations.
• Effectively prioritises work and manages competing commitments.

Our Company will consider for employment qualified applicants with criminal histories in a manner consistent with the requirements of the Fair Credit Reporting Act, and all other applicable laws, including but not limited to, San Francisco Police Code Sections 4901-4919, commonly referred to as the San Francisco Fair Chance Ordinance; and Chapter XVII, Article 9 of the Los Angeles Municipal Code, commonly referred to as the Fair Chance Initiative for Hiring Ordinance. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to age, race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, protected veteran status, or disability status. PepsiCo is an Equal Opportunity Employer: Female / Minority / Disability / Protected Veteran / Sexual Orientation / Gender Identity / Age If you'd like more information about your EEO rights as an applicant under the law, please download the available EEO is the Law & EEO is the Law Supplement documents. View PepsiCo EEO Policy. Please view our Pay Transparency Statement.