Staff Security Engineer, Team Lead, Platform Security

At Qualtrics, we create software the world’s best brands use to deliver exceptional frontline experiences, build high-performing teams, and design products people love. But we are more than a platform—we are the creators and stewards of the Experience Management category serving over 18K clients globally. Building a category takes grit, determination, and a disdain for convention—but most of all it requires close-knit, high-functioning teams with an unwavering dedication to serving our customers.When you join one of our teams, you’ll be part of a nimble group that’s empowered to set aggressive goals and move fast to achieve them. Strategic risks are encouraged and complex problems are solved together, by passing the microphone and iterating until the best solution comes to light. You won’t have to look to find growth opportunities—ready or not, they’ll find you. From retail to government to healthcare, we’re on a mission to bring humanity, connection, and empathy back to business. Join over 6,000 people across the globe who think that’s work worth doing.

Staff Security Engineer, Team Lead, Platform Security

The challenge

As Qualtrics continues to expand the Experience Management (XM) SaaS platform, we must ensure that we’re protecting our customers and their data by building and operating secure systems. With over one thousand software & system engineers contributing to Qualtrics XM every day, we have a large attack surface to evaluate and secure. This role is critical to our mission.

Qualtrics is seeking an experienced security engineer with a passion for security and demonstrated leadership abilities to lead a platform security team. This is a new role reporting to the Head of Platform Security that includes a mix of team leadership, strategy, program operations and hands-on security engineering responsibilities. 

The Platform Security team is responsible for measures to improve and ensure the security of web & mobile applications, code and related components, underlying infrastructure and cloud services in Qualtrics SaaS products (including those of our acquired companies). The team owns secure development standards and training, security testing tools (e.g., SAST, DAST, SCA, container vulnerability management, CSPM), threat modeling, penetration testing, red team, bug bounty, and vulnerability disclosure and vulnerability management programs. Platform Security works in collaboration with other teams within the Information Security organization (including vulnerability management, security operations and incident response, and security & privacy assurance) and across the Product Engineering organization.

A day in Life

• Develop and execute the platform security architecture and program strategy; align and communicate roadmaps with stakeholders
• Support and lead a team of security engineers through regular 1-on-1 sessions and team meetings, coaching and workload management 
• Review source code & software/system designs, and consult with engineers across the organization to identify and/or avoid security issues through alignment with security standards and best practices
• Leverage your accumulated subject matter expertise of Qualtrics applications, systems, code and infrastructure to propose and drive architectural improvements which address classes of security flaws in the platform
• Document and improve secure development lifecycle processes, standards and guidelines
• Deliver training and provide mentoring to software engineers on security topics
• Facilitate threat modeling exercises to ensure optimized security design decisions are being made
• Document remediation recommendations and collaborate with engineers to ensure vulnerability findings are successfully and efficiently addressed
• Support bug bounty and vulnerability disclosure programs, including the triage and validation of reported findings
• Direct the selection, design, development, implementation and management of automated security testing tools; maintain relationships with product vendors and manage contract lifecycles
• Support Platform Security-owned tools and services which are relied upon by other organizations, including those in support of the vulnerability management program
• Coordinate with Platform Security counterparts based in the United States to align efforts

The Expectation for Success

You will define and drive improvements to the product and application security program; hire, mentor, and support a team of skilled security engineers; and work effectively with the Qualtrics engineering organization and fellow security team members to protect our customers and their data by building and operating secure systems.

Skills That Will Lead to Success

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science or a related field
• Over 10 years of relevant work experience
• Experience as a senior/staff/lead security engineer in product, application, infrastructure and/or cloud security
• Experience leading complex security projects and initiatives that require collaboration with teams across an organization
• Sound understanding of application & cloud security vulnerabilities (e.g., OWASP Top 10), defense techniques and security best practices, including language-specific security practices and present-day threats
• Experience with modern application development languages and frameworks (e.g., Node.js, Java, Golang, Python, React, Angular)
• Experience securing infrastructure, applications and services in AWS

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience with assessing and securing large, complex SaaS applications
• One or more relevant security certifications (e.g., CISSP, CISM, CEPT, CMWAPT, CPT, CEH, LPT, GWAPT, GPEN, GXPN, OSCP, AWS Certified Security - Specialty Certification)
• Prior experience leading a technical team
• Use of agile methodologies for project management
• Manual web application penetration testing experience, including the use of professional penetration testing tools (e.g., Burp Suite)
• Strong familiarity with AWS, Docker, Kubernetes, Linux and similar technologies
• Experience securing iOS/Android mobile apps
• Prior full time software development experience

Our Team’s Favourite Perks and Benefits