Head of Validation - Security & Privacy

TikTok USDS Joint Venture; Washington (District of Columbia); On-site; USD 206,000 - 397,000; Full time

Job summary

TikTok USDS Joint Venture is seeking a seasoned security executive to lead the Validation function. You will manage Vulnerability Management, Validation Engineering, Cyber & Privacy Validation, and Generative AI Content Assurance Validation, ensuring independent evidence of control effectiveness across global teams.

You will drive end-to-end security testing, prioritize fixes, and measure posture with executive-ready metrics, while growing the program and aligning with business priorities in a

Qualifications

• 15+ years in information security with leadership of multi-team groups.
• 8+ years leading offensive security, red teaming, or security assurance.
• Proven ability to scale to a large tech company with complex systems.
• Deep attacker tradecraft understanding across cloud, infra, apps, identity, data.
• Strong executive presence translating findings into risk statements.

Responsibilities

• Build and lead a global Validation organization with independent evidence on controls.
• Own full cycle from discovery to remediation and verification after fixes.
• Set strategy and engagement rules for offensive testing and red team exercises.
• Oversee Vulnerability Management at enterprise scale and drive fixes.
• Ensure fixes hold by validating across internal and external networks.
• Measure security posture with metrics, trends, and gap analysis for executives.
• Challenge cyber defense, data protection, IAM, and privacy controls.
• Test generative AI and content assurance controls alongside owners.
• Maintain independence from control-owning teams while collaborating closely.
• Report results to CSO and governance, risk, and compliance stakeholders.
• Hire and develop leaders; manage budget and roadmaps for the program.

Skills

Information security

Offensive security

Red teaming

Penetration testing

Vulnerability management

Executive leadership

Cloud security

Job description

Responsibilities

About the Team

The Validation organization independently tests whether our security and privacy controls work and meet our extreamly high security and compliance standards. Security & Privacy (S&P) sets the standards and builds the solutions. Validation checks that they hold up against real attackers, at scale, and keep working over time.

Validation owns the whole cycle from finding issues to fixing them: discovering weaknesses through red teaming, penetration testing and attack simulation across our social, games, education, productivity, and generative AI applications and models; deciding which ones matter based on how they could actually be exploited; driving fixes to completion across the company; confirming that fixes hold; and measuring how well our controls work overall. This covers product security, cyber defense, data protection, identity and access management (IAM), incident response, cloud and corporate infrastructure, privacy, and generative AI and content.

About the Role

The Head of Validation leads the following teams: Vulnerability Management, Validation Engineeringm Cyber & Privacy Validation (Penetration Testing and Red Team) and Generative AI & Content Assurance Validation.

Responsibilities

• Build and lead a global Validation organization that gives leadership independent, objective evidence on whether the controls and software we approved work in practice.
• Own the full cycle from finding issues to fixing them: discovery (red teaming, penetration testing, attack simulation, adversarial AI testing, privacy testing), prioritization, remediation, verification after fixes, and measurement.
• Set the strategy and rules of engagement for offensive testing. Balance broad, whole-company red team exercises with focused tests of single systems or targets, based on risk, threat intelligence, and business priorities.
• Run Vulnerability Management at scale. Prioritize based on how issues could actually be exploited, hold owners accountable for fixes, and push for fixes that remove whole classes of attack rather than single issues. Use automation to recommend fixes and close gaps faster.
• Make sure fixes hold. After any fix or incident, confirm from both inside and outside the network that the control works and that systems are back to their expected state.
• Through Validation Engineering, measure how well our security tools and processes work and how much they cover. Turn the results into an ongoing view of security posture that executives can track, with clear metrics, trends, and gap analysis.
• Independently challenge cyber defense, data protection, IAM, and privacy controls against realistic threats and declared requirements, including detection, prevention, containment, data handling, retention, and deletion.
• Independently test generative AI, recommendation, and content assurance controls, including jailbreaks, data leakage, model safety, ranking behavior, content provenance, and drift, working alongside first-line content assurance owners.
• Keep validation independent from the teams that own controls. Control owners design, run, monitor, and fix their controls; Validation tests them. Build close working relationships while preserving objectivity.
• Report validation results, residual risk, and posture trends to the CSO, senior leadership, and governance, risk, and compliance (GRC), audit, and regulatory stakeholders where needed.
• Hire, develop, and keep strong leaders and engineers. Build a high-performing, inclusive culture across regions and time zones.
• Define team charters, operating model, roadmap, headcount, and budget. Grow the validation scope as the program matures.

Qualifications

Minimum Qualifications

• 15+ years in information security, including 8+ years leading multi-team organizations in offensive security, red teaming, penetration testing, vulnerability management, or security assurance.
• Proven record of building or scaling an offensive security or validation function at a large, complex technology company.
• Deep understanding of attacker tradecraft across cloud, corporate infrastructure, applications, identity, and data, and of how to translate it into meaningful control testing.
• Experience running vulnerability management at enterprise scale, including exploitability-based prioritization, accountability for fixes, and success metrics.
• Strong executive presence. Able to turn technical findings into clear, objective risk statements for senior leadership.
• Experience working across security engineering, product, infrastructure, privacy, and legal teams while staying independent.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience validating privacy controls (data handling, retention, deletion, access) against regulatory or contractual requirements.
• Experience with adversarial testing of AI/ML systems, such as large language model (LLM) jailbreaks, prompt injection, data leakage, or recommender and content-integrity testing.
• Background building security control validation or breach-and-attack simulation programs and posture measurement platforms.
• Familiarity with frameworks such as MITRE ATT&CK, NIST CSF/800-53, ISO 27001, OWASP (including the LLM Top 10), and threat-informed defense practices.
• Experience in highly regulated or heavily scrutinized environments, including independent oversight, audit, or government-facing assurance work. Experience leading globally distributed teams.
• Relevant certifications (e.g., OSCP/OSCE, GXPN, CISSP) or a track record of public security research.

About USDS

TikTok USDS Joint Venture LLC is dedicated to the safety and security of millions of Americans who create, discover, and connect with what they love on the apps we operate. The Joint Venture has been established in compliance with the Executive Order signed by President Trump on September 25, 2025. Our foundation is a comprehensive data privacy and cybersecurity program we operate under defined safeguards to protect national security and secure U.S. user data, apps and the algorithm. We safeguard the U.S. content ecosystem, holding decision-making authority for trust and safety policies and moderation. USDS Joint Venture helps ensure Americans can continue to express their creativity, discover new hobbies and interests, and build thriving communities and businesses on a global scale.

On-site presence across teams allows the company to operate with greater speed, alignment, and agility — especially in areas like real-time decision-making, team development, and integrated execution. As such, the company is shifting from a hybrid work model to a fully in-person schedule up to 5 days a week.

Why Join Us

Inspiring creativity is at the core of TikTok's mission. Our innovative product is built to help people authentically express themselves, discover and connect – and our global, diverse teams make that possible. Together, we create value for our communities, inspire creativity and bring joy - a mission we work towards every day.

We strive to do great things with great people. We lead with curiosity, humility, and a desire to make impact in a rapidly growing tech company. Every challenge is an opportunity to learn and innovate as one team. We're resilient and embrace challenges as they come. By constantly iterating and fostering an "Always Day 1" mindset, we achieve meaningful breakthroughs for ourselves, our company, and our users. When we create and grow together, the possibilities are limitless. Join us.

Diversity & Inclusion

TikTok is committed to creating an inclusive space where employees are valued for their skills, experiences, and unique perspectives. Our platform connects people from across the globe and so does our workplace. At TikTok, our mission is to inspire creativity and bring joy. To achieve that goal, we are committed to celebrating our diverse voices and to creating an environment that reflects the many communities we reach. We are passionate about this and hope you are too.

USDS Reasonable Accommodation

USDS is committed to providing reasonable accommodations in our recruitment processes for candidates with disabilities, pregnancy, sincerely held religious beliefs or other reasons protected by applicable laws. If you need assistance or a reasonable accommodation, please reach out to us at https://tinyurl.com/USDS-RA

Job Information

【For Pay Transparency】 Compensation Description (Annually) - Washington, DC

The base salary range for this position in the selected city is $ 205920 - $ 397440 annually.

Compensation may vary outside of this range depending on a number of factors, including a candidate’s qualifications, skills, competencies and experience, and location. Base pay is one part of the Total Package that is provided to compensate and recognize employees for their work, and this role may be eligible for additional discretionary bonuses/incentives, and restricted stock units.

Benefits may vary depending on the nature of employment and the country work location. Employees have day one access to medical, dental, and vision insurance, a 401(k) savings plan with company match, paid parental leave, short-term and long-term disability coverage, life insurance, wellbeing benefits, among others. Employees also receive 10 paid holidays per year, 10 paid sick days per year and 17 days of Paid Personal Time (prorated upon hire with increasing accruals by tenure).

The Company reserves the right to modify or change these benefits programs at any time, with or without notice.