Senior Director, Engineering, Precision Defense

horizon3ai; United States; Remote; USD 270,000 - 365,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Stock options

Health coverage

Vision coverage

Dental coverage

Flexible vacation

Parental leave

Fully remote role

Travel up to 15%

Job summary

horizon3ai is seeking a senior leader to own the engineering strategy and organization for a portfolio of defensive security products. You will shape the roadmap for deception systems, control validation and blue team workflows, and drive reliable delivery across multiple teams.

You will build and scale engineering leadership, guide architecture decisions, and align product, engineering and customer-facing teams.

Qualifications

• Experience leading SaaS or cloud engineering organizations through managers and technical leaders.
• Track record of setting strategy and delivering across multiple teams in a fast-moving environment.
• Strong technical judgment in cloud software and distributed systems.
• Ability to translate broad goals into measurable plans.
• Experience with AI- or agent-enabled workflows and security engineering.

Responsibilities

• Set the technical strategy, operating model and roadmap, balancing customer outcomes with platform and team needs.
• Build and scale engineering teams and leadership, establishing clear ownership, goals and accountability.
• Guide architecture and design decisions across defensive engineering, integrations and AI-enabled workflows.
• Coordinate priorities and dependencies with Product, Engineering and customer-facing teams; make tradeoffs and risks visible.
• Connect exposure assessment, defense testing and safe remediation into a coherent customer experience.

Skills

SaaS leadership

Cloud engineering

Architectural judgment

Stakeholder alignment

AI-enabled workflows

Job description

Role overview

Lead the engineering strategy and organization for a portfolio of defensive security products that helps customers design defenses, validate security controls and detect activity that bypasses perimeter protections. The role spans deception systems, control validation and blue team agents, with responsibility for turning that scope into reliable products and coordinated delivery across teams.

Responsibilities

• Set the technical strategy, operating model and roadmap, balancing customer outcomes with platform and team needs.
• Build and scale engineering teams and leadership, establishing clear ownership, goals and accountability.
• Guide architecture and design decisions across defensive engineering, integrations and AI-enabled workflows.
• Coordinate priorities and dependencies with Product, Engineering and customer-facing teams; make tradeoffs and risks visible.
• Connect exposure assessment, defense testing and safe remediation into a coherent customer experience.

Requirements

• Significant experience leading SaaS or cloud engineering organizations through managers and technical leaders.
• A record of setting strategy and delivering across multiple teams or product areas in a fast-moving environment.
• Strong technical judgment in cloud software, distributed systems, platform engineering or similarly complex production systems.
• Ability to engage credibly in architecture and design discussions and translate broad goals into measurable plans.
• Experience with AI- or agent-enabled workflows and relevant security engineering, offensive security, vulnerability response, detection or control validation.

Nice to have

• Cybersecurity, penetration testing, security operations or defensive product experience, including familiarity with both offensive and defensive platforms.
• Experience building agent platforms that connect detection, decision-making and verified remediation, or scaling an early team into multiple delivery teams.
• Strategic technical partnership or managed security service provider experience.

Benefits and work setup

• Fully remote role with travel that may reach 15%.
• Base salary range of $270,000-365,000 annually, based on location and qualifications; eligible full-time employees also receive stock options.
• Benefits include health, vision and dental coverage, flexible vacation and parental leave.