Director of Security Engineering

Headquarters: Remote - USA About the Role Abnormal AI protects organizations from the most sophisticated email and collaboration attacks using behavioral AI. Security is not a bolt-on at Abnormal; it is core to the product we sell and the trust our customers place in us. Our security organization operates a commercial cloud environment and a separate FedRAMP-authorized environment, and we are pursuing increasingly rigorous federal authorizations as we grow. We are hiring a Director of Security reporting to the CISO and leading the Security Engineering organization. You will build and scale high-performing security teams, own major security programs end to end, and operate autonomously in the CISO's absence, including representing security to executive leadership, customers, and auditors. This is a role for a deeply technical leader with a software engineering background who has grown into people leadership. You have built security teams from the ground up, you write and review code and architecture when it matters, and you believe the best security organizations earn their influence through partnership rather than policy enforcement. Our Security Philosophy We run security the way the best engineering-led companies do: Security reduces toil. Our job is to make the rest of the company faster and safer at the same time. If a control adds friction without reducing risk, it is a defect. Paved paths, safe by default. We invest in guardrails, golden paths, and secure-by-default infrastructure so the easy choice is the secure choice. We prefer preventing classes of problems over chasing individual findings. Partnership over gatekeeping. Security succeeds only through deep collaboration with engineering, IT, and business teams. We embed with builders, we ship alongside them, and we take on their constraints as our own. Engineering-grade rigor. We treat security problems as engineering problems: automated, measurable, code-reviewed, and continuously improved. If the security cultures that value freedom and responsibility, context over control, and guardrails over gates resonate with you, you will feel at home here. What You Will Do Serve as deputy to the CISO: act with full authority in the CISO's absence and represent the security organization to executives, customers, and regulators. Lead, coach, and grow managers and senior engineers across Security Engineering and Security Operations. Own the security engineering roadmap: cloud security architecture (AWS-first), detection and response, identity, vulnerability management, and secure-by-default platform investments. Drive cross-functional programs with Engineering, IT, and Product, from AI security governance to data perimeter controls to federal compliance initiatives. Set and defend engineering standards for the security organization: everything as code, automated where possible, measured against outcomes rather than activity. Build hiring pipelines and raise the bar on every hire; own performance management, promotion cases, and succession planning within your teams. Translate technical risk into business terms for the executive team and board, and translate business priorities into a coherent security strategy. Must Haves 10+ years in security or software engineering, including 4+ years managing security teams, ideally including managers of managers or equivalent scope. A genuine software engineering background: you have shipped production software, and you evaluate security solutions the way an engineer would. A proven record of building and scaling high-performing security teams, with alumni who would work for you again. Deep technical fluency in cloud-native environments: AWS organizations and multi-account governance, Kubernetes, identity and access, detection engineering, and modern SDLC security. Demonstrated cross-functional leadership: you have earned the trust of engineering leaders and shipped security outcomes through their teams, not around them. Strong written commun