Staff Application Security Engineer

Upside; Washington; Hybrid; USD 140,000 - 190,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Medical, dental, and vision coverage

Equity (ISOs)

401(k) program

Family planning programs + paid parity

Physical fitness and wellness

Emotional and mental health support

Unlimited PTO + 10 holidays + Winter /

Flexible work environment

Lunch reimbursement

Employee Resource Groups

Learning and Development stipend

Transparent culture

Amazing mission!

Job summary

Upside seeks an experienced security professional to own its application security program across mobile, web, and cloud systems. You will collaborate with Product Security, Cloud Security, and Engineering to scale secure software delivery and reduce real risk through remediation and guardrails.

You will lead threat modeling, secure design reviews, and AI workflow security, implementing automation and guardrails that empower engineers while protecting data and access across AWS and CI/CD

Qualifications

• 6+ years in application or product security or equivalent depth in secure software engineering with meaningful application security ownership
• Strong Python code review skills; you can explain issues to engineers clearly
• Track record of shipping security improvements with measurable impact
• Experience with threat modeling and secure design reviews
• Practical use of AI in security work
• Working knowledge of AWS security and CI/CD security in GitHub Actions

Responsibilities

• Own Upside’s application security program, the standards, the vulnerability management pipeline, and the guardrails that stop defects from returning
• Drive vulnerability management outcomes by triaging findings from scanning, code review, and annual penetration test; partner with engineering to ship fixes
• Lead application security reviews and threat models for high-impact work; document risk decisions with mitigation plans
• Review and threat model agentic AI workflows; define security controls for tools, data access, and action execution
• Build and improve automation that triages findings and produces remediation guidance for engineers
• Build scalable guardrails beyond the team; GitHub checks, secure-by-default AWS patterns, reusable templates, and a security champions program

Skills

Python code review

Threat modeling

Secure design review

AI in security

AWS security

CI/CD security

GitHub Actions

Security automation

Tools

GitHub Actions

GitHub Advanced Security

Copilot

Terraform

AWS Lambda

AWS API Gateway

IAM

DynamoDB

S3

SNS

SQS

VPCs

Snowflake

SQL

dbt

Dagster

Claude

Claude Code

Amazon Bedrock

Job description

Meet Upside:

We created Upside to transform brick-and-mortar commerce. Our technology uses the sophistication of online retail—profit measurement, attribution, and incrementality to provide users with more value on their everyday purchases and brick-and-mortar businesses with new, profitable customers. We’ve helped millions of users earn 2 to 3 times more cashback than any other product, and hundreds of thousands of brick-and-mortar businesses earn measurable profit. Billions of dollars in commerce run through the Upside platform every year, and that value goes directly back to our retailer partners, the consumers they serve, and important sustainability initiatives.

The Impact You'll Make

You’ll report to the Product Security Manager and work closely with our Cloud Security and Engineering teams to scale secure software delivery across Upside. This role owns our application security program, reducing real risk across mobile, web, and cloud systems by driving remediation, building engineering guardrards, and creating security guidance that developers actually use.

You’ll also work both sides of the AI problem:

we use AI to do security work, and we secure the AI systems we’re building. If you came into security from a product engineering background, we’d especially love to hear from you.

• Own Upside’s application security program, the standards, the vulnerability management pipeline, and the guardrails that stop entire classes of defects from coming back
• Drive vulnerability management outcomes by triaging and tuning findings from scanning, code review, and our annual penetration test, then partnering with engineering teams to get fixes shipped and verified
• Lead application security reviews and threat models for high-impact work across mobile, web, and backend systems, and document risk decisions with clear mitigation plans
• Review and threat model agentic AI workflows, and define security controls for tool use, data access, and action execution
• Build and improve the automation that triages findings, prioritizes them with service context, and produces remediation guidance engineers can act on
• Build guardrails that scale beyond our team; repository baselines, required checks in GitHub, secure-by-default patterns for AWS workloads, reusable templates, and a security champions program

What You’ll Bring

• 6+ years in application or product security or equivalent depth in secure software engineering with meaningful application security ownership
• Strong Python code review skills, you can open a Lambda, understand what it does, and explain to the engineer who wrote it exactly what’s wrong and why
• A track record of shipping security improvements that reduced real risk, not just running scanners or writing policy, you can point to fixes that landed, were verified, and to remediation you drove across teams you didn’t own
• Experience with threat modeling and secure design review, engaging with designs before they ship, not only with code after the fact
• Practical, everyday use of AI in your security work; this is about how you already work, not a tool you’ve tried once
• Working knowledge of our stack: AWS security (Lambda, API Gateway, IAM least privilege, secrets handling) and CI/CD security in GitHub Actions, depth in the underlying mechanics matters more here than years in any one platform

Tools We Use

• GitHub: Actions, Advanced Security, Copilot
• Python, Terraform
• AWS: Lambda, API Gateway, IAM, DynamoDB, S3, SNS, SQS, VPCs
• Snowflake, SQL, dbt, Dagster
• Claude, Claude Code, Amazon Bedrock

Benefits:

• Medical, dental, and vision coverage starting on Day 1
• Equity (ISOs)
• 401(k) program
• Family planning programs + paid parental leave
• Physical fitness and wellness memberships
• Emotional and mental health support programs
• Unlimited PTO + 10 paid federal holidays + our annual, week-long Winter Break
• Flexible work environment
• Lunch reimbursement for in-office employees
• Employee Resource Groups
• Learning and Development stipend
• Transparent culture
• Amazing mission!

Diversity and Inclusion:

Diversity drives innovation, and our differences make us stronger. We‘re passionate about building a workplace that represents a variety of backgrounds, skills, and perspectives, and we do not discriminate based on race, religion, color, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, age, marital status, veteran status, or disability status. Everyone is welcome here!

If there's anything we can do to support a disability or special need during your application or interview process, please email [e-mail].

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