Director, Pentest Platform

Location

US, Remote

Employment Type

Full time

Location Type

Remote

Department

Engineering

Get to Know Us

Horizon3.ai 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.

We are a fusion of former U.S. Special Operations cyber operators, startup engineers & operators, and formerly frustrated cybersecurity practitioners. We're committed to a culture of respect, collaboration, ownership, and results.

What You'll Do

As Director of Pentest Platform, you'll lead the strategy, design, and development of the core pentest execution, orchestration, and data infrastructure that powers NodeZero's autonomous testing capabilities. You'll manage four engineering teams responsible for building and scaling the platform systems that execute, coordinate, and analyze pentests across complex enterprise environments.

Key Responsibilities

Leadership & Strategy

Lead and scale Horizon3.ai's Pentest Platform organization, overseeing three teams: Execution Engine, Orchestration, and Pentest Data Platform. Set clear technical and product direction for how NodeZero executes and analyzes pentests at scale.

Product Ownership

Partner closely with Product, Proactive Offense, and GTM teams to define platform requirements and deliver capabilities that enable NodeZero's pentest execution at scale.

Technical Depth

Stay hands-on enough to guide architectural decisions around data models, orchestration patterns, and data pipeline design. Mentor technical leads in building resilient, distributed systems.

Team Building

Build, mentor, and scale three diverse engineering teams focused on infrastructure, platform automation, and data engineering.

Cross-Functional Collaboration

Collaborate across engineering, product, and GTM to align platform roadmap with business priorities and offensive capabilities.

What You'll Bring

• Proven experience leading and scaling engineering teams in platform or infrastructure development.
• Strong technical background in distributed systems, platform architecture, and large-scale automation.
• Demonstrated success taking platform or infrastructure products from concept to market.
• Deep understanding of distributed systems, containerization, orchestration frameworks, and large-scale SaaS infrastructure.
• A product-oriented mindset, skilled at balancing technical excellence, operational reliability, and speed to market.
• Exceptional leadership and collaboration skills.
• Excellent analytical, communication, and problem-solving abilities.
• Bachelor's or Master's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related field (or equivalent experience).

Required Tech Stack Experience

• Deep expertise in distributed systems design, including service architecture, consensus protocols, and reliability patterns.
• Proficiency in at least one modern object-oriented programming language such as Python, Go, C++, or C#.
• Strong understanding of container orchestration platforms (Kubernetes, Docker Swarm, or similar).
• Hands-on experience with workflow orchestration, task scheduling, or job execution systems (e.g., Airflow, Temporal).
• Strong background in data pipeline design, ETL/ELT systems, event processing, and analytics data modeling.
• Solid grasp of platform design principles, API design, and CI/CD practices.
• Hands-on experience with cloud infrastructure and services (AWS, Azure, GCP).
• Strong operational expertise: monitoring, observability, logging, tracing, and incident response.
• Deep familiarity with network protocols, multiple operating systems, and enterprise technology stacks.
• Hands-on experience building or leading engineering for B2B SaaS or platform products.
• Working knowledge of databases (PostgreSQL, MongoDB, Neo4j, or similar).
• Understanding of cybersecurity fundamentals and familiarity with penetration testing.

Compensation and Values

• Base salary range: $280,000 - $315,000.
• Additional compensation: All full-time roles are eligible for an equity package in the form of stock options.

Perks of Horizon3.ai

• Inclusive Team and Innovative Culture.
• Growth Opportunities.
• Hybrid & Remote Work options.
• Competitive salary, equity, and benefits (health, vision, dental, flexible vacation, parental leave).