Director, Security Engineering

About the role

At Instructure, we believe in the power of people to grow and succeed throughout their lives. Our goal is to amplify that power by creating intuitive products that simplify learning and personal development, facilitate meaningful relationships, and inspire people to go further in their education and careers. We do this by giving smart, creative, passionate people opportunities to create awesome. And that's where you come in:

Job Description

The Director, Security Engineering owns how Instructure builds and runs securely. The role leads three core functions: product security, embedded in R&D teams, cloud and infrastructure security across AWS, and AI security. It also owns security architecture standards, vulnerability management, and edge security. Reports to the CISO.

Responsibilities:

Product security

- Lead product security: threat modeling, design review, and the release gate. The team works inside R&D teams on a dotted line.

- Approve standard product launches and own pen test and bug bounty intake.

Cloud and infrastructure security

- Lead cloud and infrastructure security: IAM, AWS guardrails, infrastructure as code, patch policy, secrets rotation, and privileged and non-human access.

- Own the WAF standard and approve WAF rule changes and patch window changes

AI security

- Lead AI security: set security standards for AI features, agents, and AI services that Instructure builds or integrates.

- Define controls for prompt injection, excessive agent permissions and tool abuse, data leakage, and unauthorized access through RAG and connectors.

- Set intake and risk review for third-party AI services, and manage shadow AI risk with GRC.

- Include AI-specific risks in threat modeling, design review, and the release gate.

- Work with the Security Architect on AI reference patterns, and with GRC on AI governance and risk.

Architecture, vulnerability management, and delivery

- Set security architecture and design standards, working through the Security Architect.

- Own vulnerability management: Wiz across code and cloud, SLAs by team, exceptions, and disputes. Set secure SDLC standards and release criteria, including code scanning gates, with the Security Platform and Vulnerability Management Lead.

- Support customer security reviews as the technical expert, working with GRC.

- Deliver the Security Engineering commitments in the plan, and track Engineering commitments with the VP of Engineering.

- Hire, lead, and grow the team, and write job descriptions for the team's roles.

Success measures

- New in-scope features, including AI features, get a security design review before release.

- Vulnerability SLA performance reported to Engineering leaders monthly, with overdue items escalated to the owning VP.