{"id":3099804,"url":"https://alion.io/job/horizon3-senior-director-engineering-precision-defense","title":"Senior Director, Engineering, Precision Defense","company":{"id":3088,"name":"Horizon3","domain":"horizon3.ai","url":"https://alion.io/company/horizon3","size_band":"1001-5000","is_staffing_agency":false,"employer_type":"direct","is_intermediary":false,"listed_via":null,"ats_vendor":"Ashby","truth_index":{"grade":"B","score":79,"open_postings":20,"ghost_share":0,"stale_share":0.85,"repost_share":0,"time_to_fill_p50_days":39,"computed_at":"2026-10-28T05:59:10Z"}},"role":"Leadership","role_family":"Leadership","seniority":"head","employment_type":"full_time","work_mode":"remote","remote_scope":"stated_countries","remote_scope_basis":"posting_text","remote_working_hours":null,"hiring_geo_confidence":"structured","locations":[],"countries":[],"hiring_countries":["US"],"hiring_countries_total":1,"salary":{"min":270000,"max":365000,"currency":"USD","period":"year","gross":null,"usd_annual":365000},"salary_estimate":null,"experience_years_min":null,"visa_sponsorship":false,"relocation_package":false,"has_equity":true,"technologies":[{"name":"Platform Engineering","optional":false}],"status":"live","first_seen_at":"2026-10-22T14:41:29Z","employer_posted_date":"2026-10-22","last_verified_at":"2026-10-28T04:21:35Z","board_verified":true,"closed_at":null,"days_open":5,"trust":{"level":"ok","repost_count":null,"flags":[],"days_open":5},"description":"Get to Know Us\nHorizon3 is a fast-growing, remote cybersecurity company dedicated to the mission of enabling organizations to proactively find, 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 IT Ops/SecOps teams, consulting pentesters, and MSSPs and MSPs.\nWe are a fusion of former U.S. Special Operations cyber operators, startup engineers & operators, and formerly frustrated cybersecurity practitioners. We're committed to helping solve our common security problems: ineffective security tools and false positives, resulting in alert fatigue, blind spots, \"checkbox” security culture, cybersecurity skills shortage, and the long lead time and expense of hiring outside consultants. Collectively, we are a team of learn it alls, committed to a culture of respect, collaboration, ownership, and results.\nWhat You'll Do\nAs Senior Director of Engineering for Precision Defense, you'll set engineering direction and build the organization that turns NodeZero's offensive capabilities into proactive, actionable defense. You will lead across three connected pillars: Tripwires and Deception, Security Controls Validation, and Blue Team Agents. Together, these teams help customers design their defenses, test whether they work, and detect attacker activity that makes it past the perimeter.\nYou'll translate the Precision Defense charter into an executable engineering strategy, scale teams and leadership, and deliver dependable capabilities across defensive engineering, integrations, and AI-enabled workflows. You'll partner closely with Product, leaders across Engineering and the company to focus investment, manage dependencies, and deliver customer outcomes.\nKey Responsibilities\nOrganization Leadership & Strategy\nLead and scale the Precision Defense engineering organization\n\nTurn the organization's charter into a clear technical strategy, operating model, and sequenced roadmap, balancing near-term customer value with durable platform and team foundations.\n\nBuild an effective leadership structure as the organization grows, developing engineering managers, technical leads, and senior individual contributors with clear ownership and accountability.\n\nEstablish goals and operating mechanisms that make progress, quality, staffing needs, and risks visible across multiple teams.\n\nPartner with technical leads on architecture and design, bringing sufficient depth to evaluate tradeoffs, challenge assumptions, and ensure systems can evolve as the portfolio expands.\n\nProduct & Portfolio Execution\nPartner with Product and engineering leaders to prioritize work across emerging-threat response, offensive engineering, deception, security-control validation, and agent-driven remediation.\n\nTranslate ambiguous goals into focused plans with explicit scope, measurable outcomes, and well-managed cross-team dependencies.\n\nEnsure engineering investment supports a coherent customer experience-from understanding exposure and testing defenses to taking safe, practical action.\n\nSurface tradeoffs early, communicate decisions clearly, and protect teams from competing priorities that would undermine delivery or quality.\n\nWork closely with Product, the broader NodeZero engineering organization, and customer-facing teams to connect technical plans to customer needs and company priorities.\n\nWhat You'll Bring\nSignificant experience leading SaaS or cloud service engineering organizations that deliver complex software products, including scaling teams through managers and technical leaders.\n\nA track record setting engineering strategy and delivering across multiple teams or product areas in a fast-moving environment.\n\nStrong technical judgment in cloud software, distributed systems, platform engineering, or similarly complex production environments-and the ability to engage credibly in architecture and design discussions.\n\nExperience with AI- or agent-enabled products in production is valuable; sound judgment about their limitations, verification, and safe operation is essential.\n\nDemonstrated ability to turn ambiguous objectives into sequenced execution, manage scope and dependencies, and communicate risks and tradeoffs clearly.\n\nExperience partnering closely with Product and cross-functional stakeholders to align engineering investment with customer and business outcomes.\n\nA people-first leadership approach, with experience hiring, coaching, and developing high-performing teams across disciplines.\n\nExcellent written and verbal communication, sound judgment, and a high degree of ownership and accountability.\n\nBachelor's or Master's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related field, or equivalent practical experience.\n\nNice to have\nFamiliarity with security engineering, offensive security, vulnerability response, detection, or security-control validation.\n\nExperience leading engineering in cybersecurity, penetration testing, security operations, or defensive security products.\n\nBackground spanning offensive security and defensive control platforms, such as endpoint, identity, network, or data security.\n\nExperience building agent platforms or product workflows that connect detection, decision-making, and verified remediation.\n\nExperience scaling a product organization from an early-stage team into multiple delivery teams.\n\nExperience building strategic technical partnerships or working with managed security service providers (MSSPs).\n\nTravel Required\nWe are a fully remote company, and this job may require up to 15% of travel to be successful.\nCompensation and Benefits\nAt 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.\nIn accordance with various State’s transparency regulations, we provide the following salary range information for this position:\nBase salary range: $270,000 - $365,000 annually.The exact salary will be determined based on the selected candidate’s location, qualifications, experience, and relevant skills.\n\nAdditional compensation: All full-time roles are eligible for an equity package in the form of stock options.\n\nPerks ofHorizon3\nInclusive Team: We value diversity and promote an inclusive culture where everyone can thrive.\n\nGrowth Opportunities: Be part of a dynamic and growing team with numerous career development opportunities.\n\nInnovative Culture: Work in a collaborative environment that encourages creativity and out-of-the-box thinking.\n\nHybrid & 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.\n\nCompetitive 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.\n\nYou Belong Here\nHorizon3 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, hair length or any other legally protected status by law.\nOur 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.\nWe 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.\nOther Duties\nPlease 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.\nApplication Note\nIn 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.","description_format":"text","description_chars":9160,"description_truncated":false,"requirements":{"experience_years_min":null,"management_years_min":null,"team_size_min":null,"manages_managers":false,"education":{"level":"bachelor","optional":false},"security_clearance":false,"languages":[]},"benefits":["Dental insurance","Equity","Flexible vacation policy","Growth opportunities","Hybrid work","Parental leave","Stock options"],"hiring_locations":[{"name":"United States","iso":"US","kind":"country"}],"hiring_excludes":[],"relocation_offered":false,"industries":["Penetration Testing","Information Security","Vulnerability Management","Cybersecurity AI"],"lifecycle":[{"event":"open","at":"2026-10-22T17:13:30Z"}],"visa":[],"liveness":{"score":63,"band":"ok","label":"Likely open","p_open":1,"p_active":0.632,"p_room":1,"age_days":5,"expected_fill_days":39,"reasons":["conf:1","stale_co","velocity","win:early","comp:brand"],"computed_at":"2026-10-28T05:59:10Z"},"pay":{"stated_usd_annual":365000,"is_top_pay":true},"html_url":"https://alion.io/job/horizon3-senior-director-engineering-precision-defense","json_url":"https://alion.io/job/horizon3-senior-director-engineering-precision-defense.json","meta":{"generated_at":"2026-10-28T06:35:04Z","cache_seconds":300,"methodology":"https://alion.io/methodology","terms":"https://alion.io/terms","contact":"https://alion.io/contact","api":"https://alion.io/developers","about":"Alion is a live layer of people, companies and AI agents: who they are, whether they are real and active right now, what they do and how to work with them, readable by people and by agents and paid per call.","catalog":"https://alion.io/catalog.json","usage":{"tier":"crawler_verified","counted_by":"address","units_charged":1,"used_today":8795,"day_limit":null,"remaining_today":null,"minute_limit":300,"resets_at":"2026-10-29T00:00:00Z"}},"offers":[{"id":"company.slices","title":"One company in depth, by slice","status":"live","price":{"credits":0.02,"usd":0.002,"plus_per_slice":{"credits":0.05,"usd":0.005}},"unit":"per company, plus each slice with data","note":"the employer in depth","call":{"mcp_tool":"get_company","arguments":{"id":3088},"rest":"https://alion.io/mcp/rest/get_company?id=3088"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=company.slices&for=job%2Fhorizon3-senior-director-engineering-precision-defense"},{"id":"market.stats","title":"A market slice: pay, demand and time to fill","status":"live","price":{"credits":1,"usd":0.1},"unit":"per slice","note":"pay, demand and time to fill for this role and place","call":{"mcp_tool":"market_stats"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=market.stats&for=job%2Fhorizon3-senior-director-engineering-precision-defense"},{"id":"job.search","title":"Open jobs by role, technology, place, pay and visa","status":"live","price":{"credits":0.02,"usd":0.002},"unit":"per posting in a list","note":"similar open postings","call":{"mcp_tool":"search_jobs"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=job.search&for=job%2Fhorizon3-senior-director-engineering-precision-defense"},{"id":"company.verify","title":"Is this company real and active right now","status":"pilot","price":null,"unit":"per company","request":{"url":"https://alion.io/catalog/request","method":"POST","body":"{\"offer\": \"company.verify\", \"for\": \"job/horizon3-senior-director-engineering-precision-defense\", \"note\": \"what you need it for\"}"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=company.verify&for=job%2Fhorizon3-senior-director-engineering-precision-defense"}]}