Head of Security Engineering

The Head of Security Engineering is responsible for leading the design, build, and continuous improvement of the organization’s security engineering capabilities. This role focuses on developing and operating scalable, resilient security platforms that protect applications, infrastructure, cloud platforms, and identity services while enabling secure business innovation in a regulated financial services environment. The position reports to the Head of Enterprise Technology and manages a team of approximately 25 U.S. based security engineers with a dotted line to an additional 20 in India.

Key Responsibilities

Security Engineering Leadership

• Define and execute a security engineering strategy that delivers modern, scalable, and automated security platforms aligned with business and regulatory requirements.
• Partner with infrastructure, cloud, and application engineering teams to embed security engineering capabilities directly into platforms and delivery pipelines.
• Drive the delivery of security engineering initiatives across the enterprise.

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Security Engineering Capabilities

• Lead the engineering and implementation of preventative and detective security controls across cloud, on‑premise, and hybrid environments.
• Own security tooling and platforms, including vulnerability management, endpoint and workload protection, secure configuration, and security automation.
• Design and implement security controls that support DevSecOps and modern infrastructure practices.

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Identity & Access Security Engineering

• Lead the engineering and operation of Identity and Access Management (IAM) capabilities, including authentication, authorization, and privileged access controls.
• Partner with application and platform teams to integrate identity security services consistently across the enterprise.

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Operational Enablement

• Collaborate with CISO organization, Security Operations/Incident Response and second‑line risk teams to ensure security engineering solutions effectively support monitoring and detection.
• Continuously improve security control effectiveness through automation, metrics, and engineering‑driven remediation.

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Governance Support & Reporting

• Ensure security engineering solutions align with enterprise security standards, architectures, and regulatory expectations.
• Provide regular reporting on security engineering posture, capability maturity, and control effectiveness.

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Team Leadership

• Lead and develop a high‑performing security engineering organization with strong technical depth.
• Foster a culture of engineering excellence, automation, and continuous improvement.

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Qualifications

• Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, Information Security, or a related field.
• 10+ years of experience in cybersecurity, with deep expertise in security engineering and control implementation.
• Experience working in regulated financial services environments is a plus.
• Strong knowledge of cloud security, identity security, security tooling, and automation.
• Relevant certifications (e.g., CISSP, CISM, CCSP, or equivalent) preferred.
• Strong communication and stakeholder‑management skills.

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Preferred Attributes

• Proven experience leading large‑scale security engineering or transformation initiatives.
• Strong familiarity with DevSecOps, CI/CD integration, and infrastructure‑as‑code.
• Experience with industry leading security platforms: MS Defender, Cisco, OKTA, Sailpoint, Entra, etc.
• Hands‑on technical leadership style with the ability to translate strategy into executable engineering outcomes.

Salary Range:

The salary range reflected above is a good faith estimate of base pay for the primary location of the position. The salary for this position ultimately will be determined based on the education, experience, knowledge, and abilities of the successful candidate. In addition to salary, this role may also be eligible for annual, sales, or other incentive compensation.

Our Promise

At Guardian, you’ll have the support and flexibility to achieve your professional and personal goals.  Through skill-building, leadership development and philanthropic opportunities, we provide opportunities to build communities and grow your career, surrounded by diverse colleagues with high ethical standards.

Inspire Well-Being

As part of Guardian’s Purpose – to inspire well-being – we are committed to offering contemporary, supportive, flexible, and inclusive benefits and resources to our colleagues. Explore our company benefits at www.guardianlife.com/careers/corporate/benefits. Benefits apply to full-time eligible employees. Interns are not eligible for most Company benefits.

Equal Employment Opportunity

Guardian is an equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will be considered for employment without regard to age, race, color, creed, religion, sex, affectional or sexual orientation, national origin, ancestry, marital status, disability, military or veteran status, or any other classification protected by applicable law.

Accommodations

Guardian is committed to providing access, equal opportunity and reasonable accommodation for individuals with disabilities in employment, its services, programs, and activities. Guardian also provides reasonable accommodations to qualified job applicants (and employees) to accommodate the individual's known limitations related to pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical conditions, unless doing so would create an undue hardship. If reasonable accommodation is needed to participate in the job application or interview process, to perform essential job functions, and/or to receive other benefits and privileges of employment, please contact [email protected]. Please note: this resource is for accommodation requests only. For all other inquires related to your application and careers at Guardian, refer to the Guardian Careers site.

Visa Sponsorship

Guardian is not currently or in the foreseeable future sponsoring employment visas. In order to be a successful applicant. you must be legally authorized to work in the United States, without the need for employer sponsorship.

Notice Regarding Guardian’s Use of Artificial Intelligence in Recruitment

As part of Guardian’s job application process, Guardian may use artificial intelligence tools (“AI Tools") to automate the sorting and filtering of information provided by applicants as part of its preliminary screening. This preliminary screening may be used to help identify applicant materials and resumes relative to their indication that the applicant meets the requirements for the specific job for which they are applying, as specified in the listing posted on Guardian’s jobs website (Careers at Guardian at https://www.guardianlife.com/careers). At Guardian, we do not use AI Tools to substantially assist or replace human judgment or discretionary decision making in our hiring process. All hiring decisions will be made by Guardian colleagues.

Please be aware that if you apply for a specific position with Guardian, you will have the choice of opting out of Guardian’s use of AI Tools during the job application process. If you would like to request an alternative process that does not utilize AI Tools or would like to request a reasonable accommodation, within ten business days of your position application, you must email your request to [email protected], making sure to provide your name and job requisition identification number. Guardian will retain your applicant materials and resume and all information therefrom in accordance with Guardian’s document retention policy, a copy of which you may request via [email protected].

Additionally, at applicable times, Guardian will make public the most recent bias audit results for such AI tools, which may be found here. 

Current Guardian Colleagues: Please apply through the internal Jobs Hub in Workday.