Senior Engineering Manager, Data Processing Platform

Horizon3 AI; United States; On-site; USD 260,000 - 280,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Hybrid & Remote Work

Competitive Compensation

Health, Vision & Dental Insurance

Flexible vacation policy

Parental leave

Job summary

Horizon3 AI seeks an Engineering Manager to lead the Data Processing Platform team, turning raw pentest telemetry into actionable findings, reports, and insights.

You will rearchitect data processing from batch to real-time, building an event-driven microservice that scales to hundreds of thousands of hosts and streams findings as they are discovered. This role combines platform engineering with cybersecurity domain expertise.

Qualifications

• Experience managing backend, data, or platform engineering teams.
• Strong fundamentals in backend and distributed systems.
• Experience with cloud infrastructure and observability tooling.
• Ability to lead through technical ambiguity and facilitate design discussions.
• Clear written communication and roadmap documentation.
• Ownership of day-to-day team operations.

Responsibilities

• Lead and grow a team of backend and platform engineers migrating post-op processing from a batch system to a real-time, event-driven architecture.
• Partner with Product, Attack Engineering, and adjacent Platform teams to sequence the rework so customer value ships continuously.
• Shape the technical direction: event streaming, stream processing, storage, schema evolution, and replayable processing.
• Invest in operational excellence — SLOs, observability, on-call, and incident response.
• Translate batch-era logic into streaming-friendly designs without fidelity loss.
• Recruit, mentor, and retain engineers who care about distributed systems and security domain.
• Establish durable team practices: design reviews, technical writing, API contracts, and decision records.

Skills

Backend engineering

Distributed systems

Data platform

AWS

Containers

Observability

Technical leadership

Tools

Datadog

Kubernetes

Kafka

Pulsar

Kinesis

Flink

Job description

Get to Know Us

Horizon3.ai is a fast-growing, remote cybersecurity company dedicated to the mission of enabling organizations to proactively find and fix and verify exploitable attack vectors before criminals exploit them. Our flagship product, the NodeZeroTM platform, delivers production-safe autonomous pentests and other key assessment operations that scale across the largest internal, external, cloud, and hybrid cloud environments. NodeZero has been adopted by organizations of all sizes, from small educational institutions to government agencies and Global 100 enterprises. It is used by ITOps/SecOps teams, consulting pentesters, and MSSPs and MSPs.

We are a fusion of former U.S. Special Operations cyber operators, startup engineers, and formerly frustrated cybersecurity practitioners. We're committed to helping solve our common security problems: ineffective security tools, false positives resulting in alert fatigue, blind spots, "checkbox” security culture, cybersecurity skills shortage, and the long lead time and expense of hiring outside consultants. Collectively, we are a team of learn it alls, committed to a culture of respect, collaboration, ownership, and results.

What You'll Do

We're looking for an Engineering Manager to lead the Data Processing Platform team — the group responsible for how NodeZero turns raw pentest telemetry into the findings, reports, and insights our customers act on.

As Horizon3 has grown in both customer count and customer size, pentest execution and data processing times scaled as well. Your team is taking on one of the most impactful architectural changes in Horizon3's history: reworking pentest data processing from a batch system into a real-time, event-driven microservice architecture. The goal is to make Horizon3 best-in-class for enterprise pentests at scale — handling hundreds of thousands of hosts and streaming findings as they're discovered. Customers will go from waiting weeks for insights to getting them in hours, fundamentally transforming how the entire product suite feels to use.

This work combines platform engineering to build the infrastructure foundation with cybersecurity domain understanding to translate years of batch-centric business logic into real-time processing.

In this role, you will:

• Lead and grow a team of backend and platform engineers migrating post-op processing from a batch system to a real-time, event-driven architecture.

• Partner with Product, Attack Engineering, and adjacent Platform teams to sequence the rework so customer value ships continuously rather than as one big-bang cutover.

• Work with senior engineers on the team to shape the technical direction: event streaming, stream processing, storage, schema evolution, and replayable processing.

• Invest in operational excellence — SLOs, observability, on-call, and incident response — as this system becomes central to every pentest Horizon3 runs.

• Help translate existing batch-era logic (finding enrichment, attack path analysis, reporting) into streaming-friendly designs without regressing fidelity.

• Recruit, mentor, and retain engineers who care about both distributed systems craft and the security domain.

• Establish healthy team practices: design reviews, technical writing, clear API contracts with neighboring teams, and durable decision records.

This is a good opportunity for a manager who still enjoys being close to the technical details and wants to grow alongside a team tackling a meaty data platform rebuild.

What You'll Bring

• Experience managing backend, data, or platform engineering teams, with a track record of shipping through the team.

• Solid fundamentals in backend and distributed systems: data modeling, API design, queues/streams, and the tradeoffs between batch and streaming.

• Comfort with modern cloud infrastructure (AWS preferred), containers, and observability tooling (Datadog or similar).

• Ability to lead through technical ambiguity — you can facilitate a design discussion, help the team converge, and know when to dig in yourself.

• Clear written communication: you can put together a roadmap, a design doc, or a postmortem the rest of the company can read.

• A sense of ownership for how the team operates day-to-day, not just what it ships.

Nice to have

• Exposure to event-driven architectures or streaming platforms (Kafka, Pulsar, Kinesis, Flink, or similar).

• Background in cybersecurity, pentesting, or vulnerability management.

• Familiarity with Python and/or Go.

Perks of Horizon3.ai

• Inclusive Team: We value diversity and promote an inclusive culture where everyone can thrive.

• Growth Opportunities: Be part of a dynamic and growing team with numerous career development opportunities.

• Innovative Culture: Work in a collaborative environment that encourages creativity and out-of-the-box thinking.

• Hybrid & Remote Work: We embrace a mix of remote and hybrid work models depending on role and location, including our Chicago office, where some roles require regular in-office presence.

• Competitive Compensation: We offer competitive salary, equity and benefits. Our benefits include health, vision & dental insurance for you and your family, a flexible vacation policy, and generous parental leave.

Compensation and Values

At Horizon3, we believe that our people are our greatest asset, and our compensation philosophy reflects this core value. We are committed to fostering an environment where all employees feel valued, respected, and rewarded for their contributions. Our compensation structure is designed to be fair, competitive, and transparent, ensuring that every team member is recognized and compensated equitably across roles, levels, and locations.

In accordance with various State’s transparency regulations, we provide the following salary range information for this position:

• Base salary range: $260,000 - $280,000 annually. The exact salary will be determined based on the selected candidate’s location, qualifications, experience, and relevant skills.

• Additional compensation: All full-time roles are eligible for an equity package in the form of stock options.

You Belong Here

Horizon3 is not just an equal opportunity employer - we are a community that values diversity, equity, and inclusion as fundamental principles of our culture and success. We are dedicated to fostering a workplace where everyone feels welcome and respected, regardless of race, color, religion, sex, national origin, age, disability, veteran status, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, genetic information, marital status, or any other legally protected status by law.

Our commitment to diversity and inclusion means we strive to attract, develop, and retain a workforce that reflects the varied communities we serve. We believe that diverse perspectives drive innovation and strengthen our ability to create cutting-edge cybersecurity solutions. At Horizon3, every team member is valued and supported in an environment that encourages personal and professional growth.

We welcome candidates from all backgrounds and experiences, and we encourage all qualified individuals to apply. Come be a part of Horizon3, where your unique contributions are recognized, and your potential is limitless.

Other Duties

Please note this job description is not designed to cover or contain a comprehensive listing of activities, duties or responsibilities that are required of the employee. Duties, responsibilities, and activities may change at any time with or without notice.

Application Note

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