Assistant Vice President (AVP), Security Engineering (Executive Level)

usaa; United States; Hybrid; USD 180,000 - 240,000; Full time

Job summary

USAA seeks an AVP of Security Engineering to set strategic direction and oversee security engineering initiatives across the organization. Build and lead a team of distinguished engineers focusing on AI, Cloud, Data, and more, embedding robust security throughout the technology lifecycle.

The role demands technical excellence, strategic thinking, and people leadership to influence cross-functional security efforts and ensure security remains a core priority.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree or 4 years of relevant education/experience may substitute for formal education.
• 10 years of related experience in Security Engineering and/or Information Technology.

Responsibilities

• Define and drive the security engineering strategy across the organization.
• Lead research, analysis, and troubleshooting of complex security issues and vendor integrations.
• Apply SRE practices to ensure highly available, secure systems.
• Lead, mentor, and develop a team of security engineers.

Skills

Security engineering experience

Information technology experience

Education

Bachelor's degree or equivalent

Job description

Why USAA?

At USAA, our mission is to empower our members to achieve financial security through highly competitive products, exceptional service and trusted advice. We seek to be the #1 choice for the military community and their families.

Embrace a fulfilling career at USAA, where our core values - honesty, integrity, loyalty and service - define how we treat each other and our members. Be part of what truly makes us special and impactful.

We are proud to support active-duty military spouses. USAA roles may offer remote or hybrid flexibility for active-duty military spouses consistent with applicable policy and business needs.

The Opportunity

The Assistant Vice President (AVP) of Security Engineering is a senior leadership role responsible for setting the strategic direction and overseeing the execution of security engineering initiatives across the organization. This individual will build a team of distinguished engineers and principals who focus on developing security solutions across priority technology areas, including AI, Cloud, Data and more. This role demands a strong blend of technical expertise, strategic thinking, and people leadership to ensure robust security is embedded throughout the technology lifecycle and to protect the association from evolving threats. This role also requires executive influence skills to partner with other engineering, architecture and development roles from across the technology organization.

The AVP will lead a high performing team, foster a culture of innovation and continuous improvement, and act as a key subject matter expert influencing cross-functional security efforts.

This role is remote eligible in the continental U.S. with occasional business travel. However, individuals residing within a 60-mile radius of a USAA office will be expected to work on-site 4 days per week.

Key Responsibilities:

• Strategic Security Engineering Leadership: Define and drive the security engineering strategy, ensuring security requirements are integrated into all aspects of the solution/application enablement and sustainment lifecycle.
• Collaborate with architecture to help define the strategic direction for cross-functional and highly complex key technologies within specific security domains.
• Lead the research, analysis, and troubleshooting of highly complex security issues, systems, tools, and vendor integrations, identifying, resolving, and reporting on them.
• Advance professional development through active participation in industry organizations, publications, educational opportunities, networking, and professional societies.
• Technical Design & Development: Design, develop, code, integrate, and test complex, cross-functional technical solutions with a primary focus on security, often collaborating with engineers and architects outside of the immediate team/department.
• Apply Site Reliability Engineering (SRE) practices within their security domain to ensure highly available, performant, and secure systems.
• Lead the implementation of event-driven security architectures, methods, and controls.
• Advise on security architecture, methods, and controls required to meet security, compliance, and audit requirements.
• People Leadership & Development: Lead, mentor, and guide a team of security engineers, fostering a culture of continuous learning, professional growth, and collaboration.
• Ensure the team stays current with the latest security trends and technologies through ongoing development and training.
• Conduct code and design reviews to ensure effective operations, accurate planning, and adherence to security best practices.
• Drive engineering efficiencies within the team.
• Risk Management & Compliance: Identify and manage existing and emerging risks stemming from business activities, ensuring risks are effectively identified, measured, monitored, and controlled in accordance with risk and compliance policies and procedures.
• Collaborate with Security Analysts, IT, and Business Partners to tune, harden, and enhance security solutions and technologies to counter the latest trends and threats.
• Ensure Information Security is integrated across the association by conducting comprehensive technology research to evaluate potential vulnerabilities in company systems.
• Cross-Functional Influence: Influence and lead cross-functional efforts across the organization as a subject matter expert in their security domain.
• Work closely with IT and Business Partners to ensure security solutions align with business objectives.
• Operational Excellence: Independently resolve complex production issues and lead troubleshooting of end-to-end solutions that span multiple applications and systems.
• Install, configure, troubleshoot, and maintain hardware and software related to security infrastructure.

Qualifications:

• Education: Bachelor's degree; OR 4 years of relevant education and/or experience.
• Experience: 10 years of related experience in Security Engineering and/or Information Technology