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API Security Engineer

Role Overview

We are seeking an experiencedAPI & Application Security Engineer with expertise inAPI security, Web Application Firewall (WAF/WAAP), application security, API gateway integrations, security architecture, and threat modeling.

This role is responsible for designing, deploying, integrating, administering, and optimizing enterprise API and application security controls across cloud, on-premises, containerized, and hybrid environments.

The engineer will partner directly with application development, security architecture, DevOps/SRE, cloud, network, SOC, middleware, and platform engineering teams to identify security risks, implement protections, investigate threats, automate security processes, and drive remediation.

Key Responsibilities

API Security

• Deploy, configure, administer, and optimize enterpriseAPI security platforms and controls.
• Perform continuous API discovery, inventory, classification, and security posture management.
• Identifyshadow, rogue, zombie, deprecated, and undocumented APIs.
• Analyze API traffic, endpoints, parameters, authentication mechanisms, sensitive-data flows, and behavioral patterns.
• Identify vulnerabilities includingBOLA/IDOR, broken authentication and authorization, injection, SSRF, excessive data exposure, security misconfigurations, and business-logic abuse.
• Assess APIs against theOWASP API Security Top 10and organizational security standards.
• Investigate API security alerts and coordinate remediation with engineering and application teams.
• Integrate API security findings withSIEM, SOAR, vulnerability management, incident response, and ticketing workflows.

eBPF Agent / Sensor Deployment

• Design, deploy, configure, and maintaineBPF-based API security agents and sensorsacross Linux, containerized, Kubernetes, and cloud environments.
• Deploy traffic-collection components to provide visibility into API communications and application behavior.
• Validate operating-system, kernel, container runtime, Kubernetes, networking, and infrastructure prerequisites for eBPF deployments.
• Troubleshootagent installation, connectivity, permissions, kernel compatibility, traffic visibility, telemetry collection, and performance issues.
• Validate that deployed sensors provide appropriate API visibility while minimizing application and infrastructure impact.
• Develop standards and automation for repeatable, enterprise-scale agent deployments.
• Support agent upgrades, configuration changes, health monitoring, troubleshooting, and lifecycle management.
• Apply least-privilege and secure deployment practices to agent permissions and runtime configurations.

API Gateway & Middleware Integrations

• Integrate API security platforms withenterprise API gateways, middleware platforms, reverse proxies, ingress controllers, and traffic-management technologies.
• Work with API proxies, products, policies, routing configurations, authentication mechanisms, and traffic-management controls.
• Configure and validate API traffic visibility between gateways and API security platforms.
• Review gateway policies forauthentication, authorization, rate limiting, TLS/mTLS, data exposure, routing, and security-control weaknesses.
• Support integrations with bothcloud-native API management platforms and enterprise on-premises gateway appliances.
• Configure and validate traffic forwarding, mirroring, logging, telemetry, or other supported collection mechanisms.
• Troubleshoot connectivity, certificate, traffic collection, API discovery, and integration issues.
• Partner with gateway administrators, middleware engineers, application teams, and platform owners to remediate identified security weaknesses.

Web Application Firewall / WAAP

• Deploy, configure, administer, and optimize enterpriseWAF/WAAP security controls.
• Configure and tune WAF policies, custom rules, rate controls, network/IP controls, and application protections.
• Analyze HTTP/HTTPS traffic and security events to identify attacks, anomalous activity, and false positives.
• InvestigateSQL injection, XSS, command injection, path traversal, file inclusion, malicious automation, and other application-layer attacks.
• Onboard applications and APIs to enterprise web and API protection services.
• Tune security policies to maintain effective protection while minimizing impact to legitimate application traffic.
• Support security incident investigations using WAF, API, application, and network telemetry.

Security Architecture & Threat Modeling

• Perform security architecture reviews forAPIs, web applications, microservices, API gateways, middleware platforms, Kubernetes, containers, and cloud environments.
• Conduct threat modeling to identifyattack surfaces, trust boundaries, abuse cases, authorization risks, sensitive-data exposure, and potential control gaps.
• Review authentication and authorization architectures involvingOAuth 2.0, OIDC, JWT, API keys, mTLS, IAM, RBAC, and other access-control mechanisms.
• Evaluate end-to-end API traffic flows from clients through edge-security controls, gateways, middleware, microservices, and backend applications.
• Recommend preventive, detective, and compensating security controls based on identified risks.
• Participate in application and infrastructure design reviews and promotesecure-by-designengineering practices.

Application Security & Automation

• Perform application and API security assessments using manual and automated testing techniques.
• Apply theOWASP Top 10 and OWASP API Security Top 10to application and API assessments.
• Perform HTTP/API request and response analysis, vulnerability validation, and remediation verification.
• Work withintercepting proxies, API clients, command-line testing tools, SAST, DAST, SCA, and API security testing technologies.
• Integrate application and API security testing intoCI/CD and DevSecOps pipelines.
• Develop automation usingPython, Bash, PowerShell, Go, JavaScript, APIs, or similar technologies.
• Automateagent deployment, configuration validation, API onboarding, security testing, reporting, alert enrichment, and vulnerability-management workflows.
• Work directly with developers to explain vulnerabilities, recommend practical remediation, and validate fixes.

Education & Experience

• Bachelors degreein Cybersecurity, Computer Science, Information Technology, Information Systems, Computer Engineering, Software Engineering, or a related technical discipline and relevant professional experience;or
• An equivalent combination ofcollege education, technical training, industry certifications, and hands-on cybersecurity experience.
• Candidates with anAssociate degree, relevant college coursework, technical certifications, or substantial professional experiencein lieu of a four-year degree may be considered.
• Demonstrated professional experience inAPI security, application security, WAF/WAAP engineering, security architecture, DevSecOps, cloud security, vulnerability management, or security engineering.
• Hands-on experience deploying and supportingenterprise API security, application security, API gateway, and traffic-monitoring technologiesis strongly preferred.

Required Technical Qualifications

• Hands-on experience withenterprise API security technologies.
• Experience deploying, configuring, and tuningWAF/WAAP security controls.
• Understanding ofeBPF-based agent/sensor deployment and troubleshootingin Linux, Kubernetes, containerized, and cloud environments.
• Experience integrating API security platforms withenterprise API gateways and API management technologies.
• Strong knowledge ofHTTP/HTTPS, DNS, TLS/mTLS, REST, GraphQL, JSON, OpenAPI/Swagger, web services, and API gateway architectures.
• Strong understanding of theOWASP API Security Top 10 and OWASP Top 10.
• Knowledge ofOAuth 2.0, OIDC, JWT, API keys, IAM, RBAC, and modern API authorization models.
• Experience performingsecurity architecture reviews and threat modeling.
• Working knowledge of public cloud platforms, Kubernetes, containers, Linux, and microservices.
• Experience withsecure SDLC, DevSecOps, CI/CD, vulnerability management, and incident-response processes.
• Ability to troubleshoot complex integrations across applications, gateways, middleware, networks, security controls, and cloud infrastructure.
• Ability to work directly withdevelopers, architects, API gateway teams, middleware engineers, DevOps/SRE, cloud, network, SOC, and infrastructure teams.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience operating enterprise-scaleAPI security and application security environments.
• Experience witheBPF-based API traffic collection and Kubernetes/Linux sensor deployments.
• Advanced experience integrating security platforms withcloud-based API management solutions and enterprise gateway appliances.
• Experience with API gateways, reverse proxies, service meshes, ingress controllers, and load-balancing technologies.
• Experience integrating security telemetry withSIEM/SOAR platforms.
• Experience with penetration testing and adversarial API/application security assessments.
• Familiarity withSTRIDE, attack trees, or comparable threat-modeling methodologies.
• Experience developing security tooling and automation at enterprise scale.
• Relevant industry certifications ininformation security, application security, penetration testing, cloud security, or DevSecOpsare preferred but not required.

Key Technical Skills

API Security | Application Security | WAF/WAAP | eBPF | Linux | Kubernetes | API Gateway Security | API Management | API Discovery | API Posture Management | REST | GraphQL | OWASP API Top 10 | OWASP Top 10 | OAuth 2.0 | OIDC | JWT | TLS/mTLS | OpenAPI/Swagger | DevSecOps | CI/CD | Python | Security Automation | Threat Modeling | Security Architecture | Cloud Security | SIEM/SOAR | Vulnerability Management

What Success Looks Like

The successful candidate will serve as a technical subject-matter expert forenterprise API and application security, with the ability to deploy and troubleshooteBPF-based security agents, integrate security capabilities withcloud and on-premises API gateway technologies, and secure complex enterprise API architectures.

The engineer will combine hands-on security engineering with API security, WAF/WAAP, application security, security architecture, threat modeling, cloud security, DevSecOps, and automation expertise while working directly with engineering teams to implement scalablesecure-by-design solutions.

COMPENSATION AND BENEFITS

Please click for a list of benefits for which this position is eligible.

Key has implemented an approach to employee workspaces which prioritizes in-office presence, while providing flexible options in circumstances where roles can be performed effectively in a mobile environment.