Director of Product Management, AI Security

F5 Networks, Inc.; San Jose (CA); Hybrid; USD 249,000 - 373,000; Full time

Job summary

F5 Networks, Inc. seeks a Director of Product Management for AI Security to lead a dedicated team of PMs while staying close to technology and scaling performance.

You will own the entire product lifecycle—from ideation to GTM and sales enablement. This hands-on leadership role requires 3+ years managing technical PMs and 10+ years in enterprise security product management, with deep knowledge of MCP, AI gateways, guardrails, and secure agentic platforms.

Qualifications

• 3+ years of direct people management experience.
• 10+ years in product management in enterprise cybersecurity/cloud security/developer platforms (2+ years in AI/ML platforms or AI security).
• Deep familiarity with AI guardrails, MCP, agentic platforms, and secure AI deployment.
• Strong knowledge of security concepts including IAM and API gateway security.

Responsibilities

• Lead, mentor, and grow a team of AI Security Product Managers with technical rigor and customer empathy.
• Own strategic, high-complexity product areas including integrations with model providers and design partners; translate requirements into multi-year vision.
• Define monetization strategies, pricing tiers, and enterprise packaging; enable sales and partnerships.

Skills

Leadership

Product management

Domain expertise

Security concepts

Commercial acumen

Education

BS/MS in CS or CE

MBA or equivalent

Job description

At F5, we strive to bring a better digital world to life. Our teams empower organizations across the globe to create, secure, and run applications that enhance how we experience our evolving digital world. We are passionate about cybersecurity, from protecting consumers from fraud to enabling companies to focus on innovation. Everything we do centers around people. That means we obsess over how to make the lives of our customers, and their customers, better. And it means we prioritize a diverse F5 community where each individual can thrive.

Role Overview

This is a hands-on "player-coach" leadership role designed for an exceptional product leader who wants to remain close to the technology while scaling a high-performing team. As the Director of Product Management for AI Security, you will lead a dedicated team of AI Security product managers, while personally driving high-stakes strategic initiatives. You will own the entire product lifecycle—from initial ideation and technology research through to engineering delivery, go-to-market pricing strategy, and global sales enablement. Partnering with top-tier foundation model providers, design partner customers, and our Forward Deployed Engineering (FDE) teams, you will establish our organization as the definitive leader in enterprise AI security.

Key Takeaways of the Role

• High-Impact Leadership: Scale and mentor an elite team of technical AI Security PMs while remaining hands-on in product delivery.
• Full-Lifecycle Ownership: Drive product success beyond engineering—owning market positioning, pricing models, packaging, and commercial enablement.
• Cutting-Edge Security Domain: Direct our strategy across Model Context Protocol (MCP) gateways, agentic identity, real-time guardrails, and automated red-teaming.

Key Responsibilities

• Team Leadership & Coaching (The "Coach")
  Lead, mentor, and grow a team of specialized AI Security Product Managers, establishing high standards for technical rigor, product execution, and customer empathy. Foster a collaborative culture that balances deep technical platform engineering with commercial, customer-first product design. Actively manage resource allocation, roadmap prioritization, and career development paths for your PM team.
• Hands-on Product Strategy & Execution (The "Player")
  Personally own strategic, high-complexity product areas, including our integration roadmap with top-tier model providers and design partners. Translate market requirements into an actionable, multi-year product vision, bridging the gap between cutting-edge security research and production-grade software. Drive alignment across engineering, data science, and developer relations to ship highly performant AI Gateway, MCP Gateway, and Agentic Identity management solutions.
• Full Lifecycle & Business Ownership
  Ideation & Research: Track emerging LLM vulnerabilities, agentic workflows, and security frameworks to identify next-generation product opportunities.
  Pricing & Packaging: Develop and iterate on monetization strategies, enterprise pricing tiers, and licensing models tailored to API-based and agentic AI consumption.
  Sales Enablement & GTM: Build the collateral, training, and technical content needed to empower our direct sales team and partner channels to successfully sell complex AI security solutions.
  Customer Advisory: Serve as an industry thought leader, directly advising enterprise CISOs, enterprise design partners, and chief architects on secure AI deployment patterns.

Required Qualifications & Technical Skills

• Leadership Experience: 3+ years of direct people management experience, with a proven track record of recruiting, mentoring, and retaining high-performing technical Product Managers.
• Product Experience: 10+ years of product management experience in enterprise cybersecurity, cloud security, or developer platforms (with at least 2+ years dedicated to AI/ML platforms or AI security).
• Deep Domain Expertise: Strong familiarity with AI guardrails, automonous red teaming, Model Context Protocol (MCP) specification, AI Gateway architectures, and secure agentic platform development.
• Security & IAM Concepts: Strong grasp of Workload Identity, Non-Human Identity (NHI) governance, real-time guardrail architectures, LLM red‑teaming/evaluations, and API gateway security.
• Commercial & Business Acumen: Demonstrated experience designing software pricing strategies, launching new products to market, and leading technical sales enablement programs.
• Education: BS or MS in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, or an equivalent technical field. MBA or equivalent business experience is a strong plus.

The Job Description is intended to be a general representation of the responsibilities and requirements of the job. However, the description may not be all-inclusive, and responsibilities and requirements are subject to change.

The annual base pay for this position is: $248,600.00 - $373,000.00

F5 maintains broad salary ranges for its roles in order to account for variations in knowledge, skills, experience, geographic locations, and market conditions, as well as to reflect F5’s differing products, industries, and lines of business.

The pay range referenced is as of the time of the job posting and is subject to change.

You may also be offered incentive compensation, bonus, restricted stock units, and benefits. More details about F5’s benefits can be found at the following link: https://www.f5.com/company/careers/benefits.

F5 reserves the right to change or terminate any benefit plan without notice.

Please note that F5 only contacts candidates through F5 email address (ending with @f5.com) or auto email notification from Workday (ending with f5.com or @myworkday.com).

Equal Employment Opportunity It is the policy of F5 to provide equal employment opportunities to all employees and employment applicants without regard to unlawful considerations of race, religion, color, national origin, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, age, sensory, physical, or mental disability, marital status, veteran or military status, genetic information, or any other classification protected by applicable local, state, or federal laws. This policy applies to all aspects of employment, including, but not limited to, hiring, job assignment, compensation, promotion, benefits, training, discipline, and termination.

F5 offers a variety of reasonable accommodations for candidates. Requesting an accommodation is completely voluntary. F5 will assess the need for accommodations in the application process separately from those that may be needed to perform the job. Request by contacting [e-mail].

Hybrid: Employees within 30 commutable miles of an F5 office are required to work from the office a minimum of 30 business days per quarter. Remote: Primarily work from designated home location but can come into an F5 office to work or travel to an offsite location as needed.

Together, we’re building a better digital world. Founded in 1996, F5 is a global leader in application delivery and security. Our premier platform helps customers secure and deliver every app, API, and piece of infrastructure across all environments. Backed by over three decades of expertise and 553 patents, our solutions protect against threats while ensuring fast, reliable digital experiences. With over 6,400 employees, we serve more than 23,000 customers in over 170 countries. To continue this work, we need people like you—the best minds in the industry. We’re committed to a unique, human-first culture that encourages authenticity, prioritizes diversity and inclusion, and fosters the growth and success of our employees.