Sr. Manager, Application and Pipeline Security

Nielsen; United States; On-site; USD 180,000 - 260,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Health and wellness plans

401(k) with Nielsen match

Generous PTO

Job summary

Nielsen is seeking a proactive Senior Manager within the Product Security organization to drive cloud and application security initiatives. This role balances operational discipline with high autonomy and technical vision.

You will lead a team of engineers, define security policies, and guide DevSecOps transformation across development teams, ensuring compliance and rapid remediation while fostering secure AI-assisted development.

Qualifications

• 5–8 years in Application Security or Cloud Engineering with at least 3 years in management.
• Proven experience designing AWS security governance and automated incident mitigation.
• Strong mastery of CI/CD orchestration, container safeguards, and SAST/DAST/SCA in developer workflows.
• Advanced automation capabilities and security tooling architecture.
• Familiarity with AI-enhanced security tech and remediation tools.

Responsibilities

• Lead and mentor a high-performing Application Security engineering team.
• Drive a forward-looking App and Pipeline Security strategy with AI-driven DevSecOps.
• Partner with Platform Engineering to define cloud security baselines and guardrails.
• Oversee application penetration testing and ensure timely remediation within SLAs.
• Establish observability, SBOM, and automated security gates across SDLC.
• Calibrate scanning telemetry to minimize false positives and improve actionable intel.
• Design automated response triggers within AWS for rapid containment.
• Embed security into native development workflows (IDEs/CI-CD).
• Report on MTTR and Auto-Fix Acceptance Rates to show program efficacy.

Skills

AWS security

CI/CD automation

SAST/DAST/SCA

AI remediation

Leadership

Collaboration

Education

Bachelor’s in CS or Cybersecurity

Tools

AWS

CI/CD tooling

Docker

Kubernetes

Policy-as-Code

Job description

Company Description

At Nielsen, we are passionate about our work to power a better media future for all people by providing powerful insights that drive client decisions and deliver extraordinary results. Our talented, global workforce is dedicated to capturing audience engagement with content - wherever and whenever it’s consumed. Together, we are proudly rooted in our deep legacy as we stand at the forefront of the media revolution. When you join Nielsen, you will join a dynamic team committed to excellence, perseverance, and the ambition to make an impact together. We champion you, because when you succeed, we do too. We enable your best to power our future.

Company Description

At Nielsen, we are passionate about our work to power a better media future for all people by providing powerful insights that drive client decisions and deliver extraordinary results. Our talented, global workforce is dedicated to capturing audience engagement with content - wherever and whenever it’s consumed. Together, we are proudly rooted in our deep legacy as we stand at the forefront of the media revolution. When you join Nielsen, you will join a dynamic team committed to excellence, perseverance, and the ambition to make an impact together. We champion you, because when you succeed, we do too. We enable your best to power our future.

Job Description

Nielsen is seeking a proactive Senior Manager within the Product Security organization to drive and expand our cloud and application security initiatives. This role requires a balance of operational discipline, high-agency, and technical vision.

You will lead a group of skilled engineers and collaborate with development teams to transition our security framework toward a modern, automated, AI-driven DevSecOps model. You will be accountable for team performance, defining security policies, and ensuring compliance, while adapting departmental plans to address operational challenges. Additionally, you will provide subject matter guidance to employees and colleagues operating within policy guidelines with moderate managerial oversight.

Work Style & Mindset

• You prioritize business enablement over rigid perfectionism. You know how to make calculated risk trade-offs, focus on the 20% of risks that cause 80% of the impact, and keep engineering teams moving forward.
• You treat engineering teams as internal customers. You measure success not by how many vulnerabilities you find, but by how easily developers can fix them with minimal friction.
• You possess the grit and diplomatic skills to drive cultural change. You comfortably navigate organizational inertia and win buy-in for AI automation through small, high-impact victories.
• You stay ahead of emerging tech trends, continuously evaluating how AI, cloud-native patterns, and modern tooling can simplify security operations.
• You maintain a steady, analytical composure during high-severity events or pipeline blockers, focusing on automated prevention and root-cause solutions.

Responsibilities

• Lead and mentor a high-performing Application Security engineering team, fostering professional development and aligning team priorities with organizational goals and operational challenges.
• Drive a forward-thinking Application and Pipeline Security strategy that transitions operations to an autonomous, AI-driven DevSecOps model, pioneering agentic security workflows for automated remediation while establishing robust architectural guardrails and validation standards for secure AI-assisted development.
• Partner collaboratively with Platform Engineering to define cloud security baselines and Policy-as-Code (PaC) guardrails.
• Oversee application penetration testing initiatives ensuring findings are triaged, fed into pipeline guardrails, and remediated within SLA.
• Establish comprehensive observability and regulatory standards across the development lifecycle, including supply chain safeguards (SBOM), automated CI/CD security gates, and risk-approval protocols to drive rapid, friction-free remediation and ensure high-confidence visibility.
• Implement structured prioritization protocols to effectively resolve existing security vulnerabilities across application environments and cloud infrastructures.
• Refine and calibrate scanning telemetry (SAST, DAST, SCA, IaC) to minimize false positives and enhance the delivery of high-confidence, actionable intelligence.
• Design automated response triggers within AWS ecosystems utilizing native orchestration tools for rapid isolation and runtime threat containment.
• Cultivate an environment where security is seamlessly embedded into native development workflows, including IDEs and CI/CD pipelines.
• Architect and report on critical performance indicators, such as Mean Time to Remediate (MTTR) and Auto-Fix Acceptance Rates, to demonstrate program efficacy.

Qualifications

• Minimum of 5-8 years of experience in specialized roles across Application Security or Cloud Engineering, including at least 3 years in a management or leadership capacity.
• Demonstrated proficiency in designing AWS security governance and deploying automated incident mitigation within large-scale cloud ecosystems.
• Comprehensive technical mastery of CI/CD orchestration, containerization safeguards, and the integration of SAST/DAST/SCA solutions within developer-centric workflows.
• Advanced automation capabilities with the ability to architect security tooling.
• Familiarity with emerging AI-enhanced security technologies, such as LLM-driven remediation tools and automated code-fixing platforms.
• Bachelor’s degree in a technical field like Computer Science or Cybersecurity, or equivalent professional background.
• Substantial professional history serving as a Staff or Principal Software Engineer, or DevOps Specialist, preceding a career move into security management.
• Demonstrated track record of building strong, collaborative partnerships with software engineering and platform teams without relying on dogmatic authority.
• Possession of elite certifications such as AWS Certified Security – Specialty or AWS Solutions Architect – Professional.

Core Competencies

• Lead product security efforts, define policies, and ensure compliance across development teams.
• Manages professional associates and/or supervisors
• Is accountable for the performance and results of a team
• Adapts departmental plans and priorities to address resources and operational challenges
• Decisions are guided by policies, resources and local business operating procedures. Receives moderate guidance from manager
• Provides subject matter guidance to employees, colleagues and/or customers
• Manages professional employees (P1, P2, P3) and leads team. Adapts plans to meet resource and operational challenges.
• Integrates industry best practices in own area to the achieve of objectives
• Identifies and resolves moderately complex business problems
• Manages a generally homogeneous team; adapts plans and sets priorities to meet service and/or operational challenges
• Guides, influences and persuades others internally and/or externally
• Requires in-depth conceptual and practical knowledge in own areas and knowledge of other areas
• Impacts the level of service and the team’s ability to meet quality, volume and timeliness of objectives.
• Guided by department policies, resource requirements, budgets and the business plan
• 5-8 years with overseeing background
• Bachelor’s degree or equivalent experience

Enabling your best to power a better media future.

Holistic Rewards

We are committed to an inclusive benefits package that supports our employees and their families.

• comprehensive health and wellness plans
• a 401(k) with a Nielsen company match
• a generous paid time off policy
• company-provided vehicle
• discretionary incentive/bonus eligibility

Compensation Transparency

The posted base salary range is a reasonable estimate that may be adjusted based on the final work location of the selected employee. Individual pay within the range is determined by factors such as experience, training, geography, certifications, and business needs. Beyond base salary, this role may be eligible for bonuses, equity, or other incentives.

Nielsen makes hiring decisions without regard to disability status, protected veteran status, or membership in any other protected class.