Staff Application Security Architect

IBM; San Diego (CA); On-site; USD 190,000 - 230,000; Full time

Job summary

IBM is seeking a Staff Application Security Engineer to shape the security posture of large-scale distributed systems, both on-prem and cloud. You will lead architectural security, drive secure-by-design practices, and advance automation across engineering teams.

You will partner with leaders to embed security into product lifecycles, develop scalable tooling, and proactively mitigate evolving threats using AI-driven approaches. This is a high-impact, collaborative role within IBM Software.

Qualifications

• 10+ years of hands-on application security experience.
• Deep knowledge of web apps and cloud-native security.
• Proven ability to embed security into architecture.
• Experience securing CI/CD pipelines and cloud deployments.
• AI/LLMs for security automation experience.

Responsibilities

• Partner with Engineering, Product, and Platform teams to identify security risks early and drive secure-by-design adoption.
• Define and standardize threat modeling frameworks and security design standards for complex systems.
• Serve as SME for product security reviews, oversee code reviews and API security testing with remediation guidance.
• Architect and drive security automation roadmaps, building scalable tooling for security operations.
• Design and lead automation and orchestration frameworks integrating security into cloud-native pipelines.
• Identify new vulnerability classes and lead research to stay ahead of threats.
• Deploy advanced controls to maximize observability and harden key surfaces across the ecosystem.

Skills

Security engineering

Threat modeling

Security automation

Cloud security

CI/CD security

Go/Python/Java

Architectural governance

Education

Master's Degree

Job description

IBM is seeking a Staff Application Security Engineer to shape the security posture of large-scale distributed systems, both on-prem and cloud. You will lead architectural security, drive secure-by-design practices, and advance automation across engineering teams.

You will partner with leaders to embed security into product lifecycles, develop scalable tooling, and proactively mitigate evolving threats using AI-driven approaches. This is a high-impact, collaborative role within IBM Software.