Staff Developer Experience Engineer
Horizon3.ai
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Benefits offered by this job
Job summary
Horizon3 is seeking a Senior or Staff Developer Experience Engineer in the United States to shape how engineers build, test, release, and operate NodeZero-based software. This hands-on technical leader solves ambiguous problems, influences across teams, and improves the software lifecycle.
You will own developer platform strategy, CI/CD tooling, and collaboration with Platform, Security, QA, and Product teams to deliver reliable and secure foundations for Horizon3 products.
Qualifications
- 8+ years in Developer Experience, Developer Productivity, Build/Release Engineering, Platform Engineering, SRE, DevOps, or software engineering with tooling ownership.
- Deep experience designing and operating CI/CD systems, preferably GitLab CI/CD and self-hosted runners.
- Proficiency in Go and Python for automation and tooling.
- Strong understanding of Kubernetes-based development or delivery workflows.
- Experience implementing automated tests, security checks, release gates, and progressive delivery.
- Knowledge of software supply-chain security, dependencies, image vulnerabilities, provenance, secrets, and least privilege.
- Excellent written and verbal communication skills; experience mentoring engineers and driving direction without authority.
Responsibilities
- Define standards for developer workflows, build and release engineering, and AI-assisted development.
- Design safe agentic-development workflows integrated with code review, testing, scanning, permissions and security requirements.
- Turn repeated developer friction into reusable tooling, templates, and runbooks.
- Mentor engineers and raise the engineering bar across Developer Experience and Horizon3.
- Communicate complex technical decisions clearly and align Platform, App Eng, Data Eng, Security, QA, Product, and PMs.
- Participate in design reviews, incident response, and continuous improvement.
Skills
Tools
Job description
Horizon3 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.
Horizon3 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 looking for a Senior OR Staff Developer Experience Engineer to help shape how Horizon3 engineers build, test, release, and operate software.
This is a hands-on technical leadership role for an engineer who enjoys solving ambiguous problems, influencing across teams, and making the software lifecycle easier to use and operate.
Developer Platform Strategy, Delivery & Operations
- Define the architecture and roadmap for local development, repository tooling, CI/CD, build systems, and release workflows.
- Lead high-impact initiatives across engineering that reduce manual coordination and standardize the path from code change to production.
- Build reusable GitLab CI/CD templates, runner capabilities, developer workflows, test gates, artifact promotion, release manifests, and rollback paths.
- Establish sustainable practices for shared container images, build performance, reproducibility, scanning, signing, provenance, and supply-chain security.
- Improve developer workflow and delivery observability through useful measures of setup time, pipeline health, release performance, and adoption.
- Partner with Platform, Security, QA, and feature teams to make delivery foundations reliable, secure, and easy to consume.
- Establish standards and paved paths for developer workflows, build and release engineering, and approved AI-assisted development.
- Design safe agentic-development workflows that integrate with code review, testing, scanning, permissions, auditability, and Security requirements.
- Turn repeated developer friction into reusable tooling, templates, documentation, migration guidance, and runbooks.
- Mentor engineers, develop technical owners, and raise the engineering bar across Developer Experience and Horizon3.
- Communicate complex technical decisions clearly and build alignment across Platform, Application Engineering, Data Engineering, Security, QA, Product, and Program Management.
- Participate in design reviews, operational reviews, incident response, and continuous improvement.
- 8+ years of experience in Developer Experience, Developer Productivity, Build/Release Engineering, Platform Engineering, SRE, DevOps, or software engineering with substantial tooling and delivery ownership.
- Deep experience designing and operating CI/CD systems, preferably GitLab CI/CD and self-hosted runners.
- Experience with container builds, Docker or OCI images, artifact repositories, and reproducible builds.
- Strong understanding of Kubernetes-based development or delivery workflows.
- Experience implementing automated tests, security checks, release gates, progressive delivery, and rollback.
- Proficiency in Go and Python for automation, developer tooling, or platform services.
- Strong understanding of software supply-chain security, dependencies, image vulnerabilities, provenance, secrets, and least privilege.
- Demonstrated success leading complex initiatives across multiple teams and driving adoption of shared capabilities.
- Excellent written and verbal communication skills.
- Experience mentoring engineers and influencing technical direction without relying on formal authority.
- Internal developer platform, paved-road, service-template, or developer-portal experience.
- Shared language/runtime base images, image signing, SBOMs, or provenance-control experience.
- GitLab Runner fleets, CI optimization, build caching, or multi-repository release-system experience.
- Local Kubernetes, dev containers, Docker Compose, Orbstack, Skaffold, ArgoCD, or GitOps experience.
- AI-assisted or agentic engineering workflow experience.
- OpenTelemetry, Datadog, pipeline telemetry, or developer-productivity metrics experience.
- Security-sensitive, regulated, or cybersecurity experience.
- GitLab, GitLab CI/CD, and private runner fleets
- Shared CI/CD templates and pipeline management
- Docker/OCI images, artifact repositories, and shared base images
- Kubernetes, EKS, Helm, Skaffold, and ArgoCD
- AWS and cloud-native development environments
- Go, Python, TypeScript, shell scripting, and repository tooling
- OpenTelemetry, Datadog, and pipeline/deployment observability
- Approved AI coding tools, including Claude Code for approved engineering use cases
- Engineering teams adopt clear, reliable paved paths from local development through production.
- Shared CI/CD, build, and release capabilities reduce friction and manual coordination.
- The same validated artifact or commit moves predictably through environments.
- Base images, build components, and delivery workflows are secure, current, traceable, and easy to consume.
- Approved AI-assisted workflows improve productivity without bypassing review, testing, or security.
- Developer Experience has clear standards, strong adoption, measurable outcomes, and multiple technical owners.
- You are trusted across Engineering to lead difficult developer-workflow and delivery decisions.
You’ll shape the engineering system behind a rapidly evolving cybersecurity product used by organizations around the world. Your work will improve how every engineering team builds and operates NodeZero while establishing a new, high-leverage technical function at Horizon3.
Occasional travel may be required for company onsite meetings and team collaboration.
- 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.
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.
- Base salary range: $199,750 - $270,000 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.
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.
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.
In any materials you submit, you may redact or remove age-identifying information such as age, date of birth, or dates of school attendance or graduation. You will not be penalized for redacting or removing this information.
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