Security Automation Lead
Confirmed on the employer's own hiring board on Nov 1, 2026. First seen by Alion on Oct 25, 2026.
Security Automation Lead
Location: New York, New York, United States (Hybrid)
Work Arrangement: Hybrid - 3 days per week in office
Base Salary: $250,000-$350,000 + Bonus
Estimated Total Compensation: $400,000-$500,000, depending on experience
Employment Type: Full-Time
Position Overview
A leading financial services organization is seeking an experienced Security Automation Lead to build and lead a modern, engineering-driven security automation program.
This is a senior, hands-on leadership role responsible for designing and operating scalable security automation across endpoint, identity, cloud, vulnerability management, and cloud-native environments.
The ideal candidate combines deep security engineering expertise with strong Infrastructure-as-Code (IaC), CI/CD, automation, Kubernetes, observability, and policy-as-code experience. This individual will also lead a technical team, own sprint execution, and drive the transition from manual security operations toward version-controlled, auditable, engineering-owned automation.
What You'll Do
- Lead the design and operation of a unified, auditable security automation pipeline where security controls are authored, reviewed, validated, and deployed.
- Build drift detection, reconciliation, and validation engines that identify and remediate configuration divergence across endpoint, identity, cloud, and vulnerability-management environments.
- Replace manual console-based security operations with version-controlled and auditable automation using Infrastructure-as-Code and configuration-management platforms.
- Design and scale reusable IaC deployment patterns and automation components that accelerate delivery of security controls across teams.
- Build and maintain CI/CD pipelines with automated linting, testing, policy-as-code checks, pre-deployment validation gates, and controlled promotion workflows.
- Develop observability and monitoring pipelines that surface configuration drift, control failures, deployment health, and other security signals.
- Build and improve container and Kubernetes security automation, including image scanning, admission controls, runtime policy enforcement, and namespace isolation.
- Integrate automation with existing enterprise security and infrastructure platforms.
- Drive the transition from contractor-delivered and manual security processes toward sustainable, engineering-owned automation.
- Lead the team's sprint cycle using a structured backlog, two-week cadence, disciplined capacity planning, and clearly defined completion standards.
- Manage and develop security engineering talent, including hiring, coaching, performance management, and accountability for delivery.
- Establish and track operational metrics including toil reduction, bypass rates, change failure rates, drift detection and remediation times, and sprint predictability.
- Use operational metrics and postmortems to drive continuous improvement across security engineering processes.
Required Qualifications
- Demonstrated experience building and operating security automation pipelines in production environments.
- Strong hands-on experience with:
- Security automation
- Infrastructure-as-Code
- CI/CD
- Configuration management
- Scripting and automation
- Proficiency with Python, PowerShell, Bash, or similar scripting languages.
- Hands-on experience with Terraform, CloudFormation, or Pulumi for infrastructure provisioning and policy enforcement at scale.
- Proven experience designing and operating CI/CD pipelines using GitHub Actions, GitLab CI, Jenkins, or equivalent platforms.
- Strong understanding of branching strategies, automated testing, validation gates, and deployment/promotion workflows.
- Working knowledge of Kubernetes, including:
- Cluster operations
- Helm chart management
- Container/image lifecycle
- Admission controllers
- Runtime security
- Namespace isolation
- Experience designing and operating observability environments using platforms such as Prometheus, Grafana, Datadog, or Splunk.
- Familiarity with policy-as-code frameworks such as Open Policy Agent (OPA/Rego), Sentinel, Cedar, or similar technologies.
- Working knowledge of enterprise security technologies across areas such as:
- Endpoint Detection & Response (EDR)
- Mobile Device Management (MDM)
- Identity and access management
- SIEM
- Vulnerability management
- Experience integrating security platforms with automation and infrastructure tooling.
- **Direct people-management experience**, including hiring, coaching, professional development, and accountability for delivery.
- Demonstrated experience leading teams within a structured sprint environment, including backlog prioritization, capacity planning, and Definition of Done enforcement.
- Strong communication and cross-functional leadership skills.
- Commitment to high ethical and professional standards.
Ideal Candidate Profile
The strongest candidate will combine security engineering leadership with hands-on DevSecOps and platform engineering expertise.
We are looking for someone who has personally built production automation-not simply managed security teams or administered security tools.
You should be comfortable working across Terraform, CI/CD, Kubernetes, scripting, observability, policy-as-code, and enterprise security platforms, while also leading engineers and establishing disciplined engineering practices.
The ideal candidate has successfully transformed manual security operations into automated, version-controlled, testable, auditable, and scalable engineering workflows.
Experience within financial services, investment management, quantitative trading, fintech, or another highly sophisticated enterprise technology environment is highly desirable.
Compensation
Base Salary: $250,000-$350,000
The position also includes a performance-based bonus, with anticipated total compensation of approximately $400,000-$500,000, depending on experience and qualifications.
Location & Schedule
New York, NY
This is a hybrid position requiring 3 days per week in office.
Candidates must be able to regularly commute to the New York City office.
Confidential Search: Additional information regarding the organization will be provided to qualified candidates as they progress through the recruitment process.