You will lead an organization of 75+ security engineers, software engineers, data engineers, and technical program managers across the US and India. Your scope includes:
- Defining and executing the multi-year security strategy for Amazon Payments, covering application security, security engineering, threat detection, offensive security, and security operations
- Building and scaling a high-performing, geographically distributed organization with strong engineering culture and clear career paths across security disciplines
- Driving security standards and mechanisms that payments teams adopt because they make building faster and safer, not because they are mandated
- Owning the security posture of payments-critical infrastructure including cardholder data environments, tokenization platforms, and payment processing services
- Representing Amazon's payments security program to external partners, auditors, regulators, and industry bodies (PCI SSC, payment networks)
- Partnering with Amazon's central security organizations (InfoSec, AWS Security, Stores Security) to influence company-wide security strategy and adopt shared services where they raise the bar
- Setting the technical direction for security tooling and automation that reduces cost-to-serve while increasing coverage, including AI/ML-powered detection, automated security review, and data-driven risk prioritization
A day in the life
You are a security leader who has built and scaled security programs, not just inherited them. You combine deep technical credibility with the organizational instincts to know when to build custom solutions and when to adopt platform capabilities. You communicate security risk in business terms and can hold your own in a room of payments engineers debating protocol-level details.
You have strong opinions about how modern security organizations should operate: embedded with builders, automated by default, measured by outcomes rather than activity. You are energized by ambiguity and comfortable setting direction when the path is unclear.
BASIC QUALIFICATIONS
- Bachelor's degree in Engineering preferably in Computer Science (or related discipline)
- 10+ years of experience in cybersecurity, security engineering, or related technical fields
- 7+ years leading security organizations including managers of managers
PREFERRED QUALIFICATIONS
- Experience building and operating security programs for large-scale payment or financial services systems
- Deep technical expertise across multiple security domains: application security, network security, cryptography, threat detection, or cloud security
- Track record of defining multi-year security strategy and delivering measurable results
- Experience operating with VP and SVP-level stakeholders
- Experience securing payment card industry (PCI) environments at scale
- Background in both offensive and defensive security disciplines
- Experience leading geographically distributed teams across multiple countries
- History of building security tooling and automation that scales beyond a single team
- Comfort representing your organization externally at industry forums, with partners, or with regulators
- Experience driving security culture change in large engineering organizations where security is not the primary mission
The base salary range for this position is listed below. Your Amazon package will include sign-on payments and restricted stock units (RSUs). Final compensation will be determined based on factors including experience, qualifications, and location. Amazon also offers comprehensive benefits including health insurance (medical, dental, vision, prescription, Basic Life & AD&D insurance and option for Supplemental life plans, EAP, Mental Health Support, Medical Advice Line, Flexible Spending Accounts, Adoption and Surrogacy Reimbursement coverage), 401(k) matching, paid time off, and parental leave. Learn more about our benefits at https://amazon.jobs/en/benefits.
USA, WA, Seattle - 250,000.00 - 338,200.00 USD annually
