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Role Summary
Pinterest is looking for a Senior Director of Security Engineering to serve as the CISO's operating partner and lead the engineering execution for the entire Product and Cloud Security areas of our information security program. This is not a conventional security-leadership hire — it is a mandate to run a significant, multi-domain engineering organization at the intersection of product security, cloud and infrastructure security, and privacy engineering.
Reporting directly to the CISO, you will own approximately two-thirds of Pinterest's entire information security program: a team of 40+ engineers organized across five direct reports, and a scope that spans from secure product development and platform controls to privacy-by-design architecture and AI security. You will translate Pinterest's security and privacy strategy into measurable, durable engineering outcomes — and serve as a trusted partner to Engineering, Product, Legal, Privacy, and Trust & Safety leadership.
What You'll Do:
- Own the end-to-end security engineering organization spanning product security, application security, identity and access management, vulnerability management, security architecture, supply chain and AI/product-risk controls, and cloud infrastructure security.
- Define and drive Pinterest's multi-year security engineering roadmap; translate risk appetite and policy into executable, measurable engineering programs across product and infrastructure lifecycles
- Serve as the executive owner of threat modeling, secure design review, and developer security enablement — embedding security as a first-class capability within Pinterest's engineering culture
- Partner closely with VP-level engineering, product, and infrastructure leaders and teams to seamlessly integrate security into the software development lifecycle. Leverage relationships with strategic partners such as AWS to operate at the leading edge of cloud security best practices
- Lead Pinterest's security privacy engineering function as a product-grade capability: privacy-by-design systems, data inventory and classification, consent and preference controls, data lifecycle and deletion.
- Drive the maturation of privacy engineering beyond compliance response — building reusable, scalable engineering primitives that make privacy-preserving development faster and safer across Pinterest's product surface area
- Champion and evangelize foundational security platforms and libraries to ensure a secure production and data infrastructure. This includes adoption of enterprise grade IAM (e.g. machines, workloads, agents, users) systems, secrets management, network security and container security.
- Own Cloud Governance: Leads cloud security posture and governance. Define and enforce standards for IaC security, AWS resource provisioning, CI/CD pipeline security, and overall security policies.
- Direct the maturation of the Security Compliance & Accountability platform. Establish and enforce rigorous metrics across multiple focus areas, including AAA (Authentication, Authorization, Accounting) standards and automated vulnerability management.
- Serve as the CISO's primary operating partner: synthesizing complex security and risk narratives into concise executive communications, investment cases, and evidence of risk reduction for senior leadership and the board
- Build deep, trusted partnerships with Engineering, Product, Legal/Privacy, Trust & Safety, IT, Internal Audit, and Data leadership — spending approximately 50% of your time driving cross-functional alignment and execution
- Establish a unified operating system for security and privacy engineering — aligning roadmaps, service levels, prioritization, and success metrics across all domains under your ownership
- Build and strengthen a high-performing global leadership bench: mentor and lead a high-performing team of senior staff security engineers and managers.Clarify organizational structures and accountabilities, and establish a scalable talent model across a geographically distributed team.
- Shape Pinterest's approach to AI security — spanning both the security of AI-powered product surfaces and the application of AI/ML to improve operational efficiency, and threat response.
What We're Looking For:
- 15+ years of progressive experience in security engineering, with a career foundation in software engineering or security software engineering — you started writing code and have built your career from that craft
- Demonstrated experience leading a large, multi-domain security engineering organization (30+ engineers) at a B2C consumer internet platform of comparable scale — experience at companies with elevated consumer threat models (e.g., social platforms, marketplaces, consumer fintech adjacent) is strongly preferred
- Deep, hands-on expertise in product security — secure design, application security, vulnerability management, and developer enablement — with the credibility to lead a team comprised predominantly of security software engineers
- Meaningful experience in privacy engineering as a technical discipline, not just a compliance function; familiarity with privacy-by-design architectures and data lifecycle engineering
- Proven track record managing large-scale security budgets and driving measurable, multi-year security programs from strategy through execution
- Experienced managing geographically distributed teams and stakeholders in a global environment
A builder and developer of talent: you take genuine pride in the careers of the people on your team and in creating organizational clarity in complex, fast-moving environments
- Fluency in cloud security architecture (AWS preferred), application and product security, identity and access management, privacy-preserving systems, and modern detection and response engineering
- Able to engage directly and credibly with senior security software engineers on technical design, architecture decisions, and engineering trade-offs
- Bachelors Degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or relevant field
In-Office Requirement Statement:
- We recognize that the ideal environment for work is situational and may differ across departments. What this looks like day-to-day can vary based on the needs of each organization or role.
- This role will need to be in the office for in-person collaboration 1-2 times per week and therefore needs to be in a commutable distance from one of the following offices: PA or SF offices.
Relocation Statement:
- This position is not eligible for relocation assistance. Visit our PinFlex page to learn more about our working model.
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Our Commitment to Inclusion:
Pinterest is an equal opportunity employer and makes employment decisions on the basis of merit. We want to have the best qualified people in every job. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, ancestry, national origin, religion or religious creed, sex (including pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical conditions), sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, gender expression, age, marital status, status as a protected veteran, physical or mental disability, medical condition, genetic information or characteristics (or those of a family member) or any other consideration made unlawful by applicable federal, state or local laws. We also consider qualified applicants regardless of criminal histories, consistent with legal requirements. If you require a medical or religious accommodation during the job application process, please complete
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By submitting this application, I certify that all information submitted in my application and throughout the hiring process is true, accurate, and complete to the best of my knowledge. I understand that any false statement, omission, or misrepresentation may disqualify me from employment consideration or result in termination if discovered after hire.