Founding Security Leader for FinTech Payments

Phaxis; New York (NY); On-site; USD 180,000 - 320,000; Full time

Job summary

Phaxis is seeking a hands-on Head of Security to build and lead the information security function from the ground up. This founding-team role offers significant ownership with a clear path toward CISO as the company grows.

You will own security for critical money movement infrastructure, drive SOC 2/NIST-compliant controls, and lead incident response. The position is based in the United States and requires strong AWS expertise and a pragmatic, automation-first mindset.

Qualifications

• 7+ years of security engineering, cloud security, or related field.
• Experience securing high-value financial infrastructure (payments/banking/crypto).
• Strong threat-modeling ability and ability to communicate security decisions to executives/auditors.
• Hands-on experience with AI-assisted development tools and automation.
• Experience with AWS cloud security including IAM and guardrails.

Responsibilities

• Own security for critical money movement infrastructure and custody flows.
• Build and automate controls for SOC 2, FFIEC, and NIST 800-53.
• Lead end-to-end incident response and runbooks.
• Drive application and supply-chain security (secure SDLC, secrets, CI/CD).
• Establish IAM practices with least privilege and periodic reviews.
• Manage third-party/vendor security assessments and risk reviews.
• Secure AWS/Terraform infra, with guardrails and disaster recovery.
• Leverage AI and automation to reduce manual security processes.

Skills

Security engineering

AWS security

Threat modeling

Automation

Incident response

Executive communication

AI-assisted tooling

Tools

Terraform

IAM

CI/CD security

Security tooling

Job description

Phaxis is seeking a hands-on Head of Security to build and lead the information security function from the ground up. This founding-team role offers significant ownership with a clear path toward CISO as the company grows.

You will own security for critical money movement infrastructure, drive SOC 2/NIST-compliant controls, and lead incident response. The position is based in the United States and requires strong AWS expertise and a pragmatic, automation-first mindset.