Senior Security Engineer (Product)
Headway · New York, United States
- On site
- Full-time
- $273,125 / year
- New York, United States
Job highlights
- Build and drive product security engineering at Headway.
- Partner with product and engineering on secure development.
- Enhance automated tooling for application security.
- Ensure secure development culture and practices.
- Assist in security operations and incident response.
About the role
About Headway
1 in 4 people in the US have a treatable mental health condition, but most providers don't accept insurance, making therapy too expensive for most people. Headway’s mission is to fix this by building a new mental healthcare system everyone can access. We started by solving the biggest barrier to care: insurance. The admin work - credentialing, claims, payment reconciliation - is a nightmare. We've automated that.
But we're going further. Over 75,000 providers across all 50 states run their practice on our software, serving over 1 million patients. We are building the best tools for therapists to run their entire practice, reimagining the experience of finding a therapist, and investing in the platform foundations to enable this at scale. We aren't just a billing layer; we are becoming the platform where care actually happens.
We're a Series D company with $325M+ in funding (a16z, Accel, Spark Capital, etc.), looking for exceptional people to help us achieve this mission. We want your time here to be the most meaningful experience of your career. Join us, and help change mental healthcare for the better.
About The Role
The Trust team at Headway is focused on security and privacy for all of Headway’s customers - therapists, patients, and payers (ex: insurance companies and health systems). As an early member on the team, you’ll have the unique opportunity to be the builder and driver of our dedicated, in-house product and application security engineering efforts. In this role, you will partner closely with our product and engineering teams to ensure that our application is designed and developed securely so that we can maintain and grow customers’ trust in Headway.
What You’ll Do At Headway
- Partner with Product and Engineering: Headway has many new product launches on the horizon that will transform the industry and have a rich data component. You will be a partner at both the design and development stage to ensure that we implement new features securely, including (but not limited to): Participating in the implementation efforts, doing security reviews, and helping with product design decisions.
- Auditing and surfacing vulnerabilities: Identify and report vulnerabilities in our current products.
- Develop and Improve our Automated Tooling: Further enhance our automated tooling to scale our application security capabilities and find potential code problems both before and after we deploy.
- Make the safe way, the easy way: Work on defining and building application guardrails so that developers can build securely by default. You also will work to instill a culture of secure development across engineering.
- Assist in ongoing security operations: You will be part of the security and privacy team and have responsibilities to assist in incident response, vulnerability management, penetration testing, security reviews, and other operational tasks to ensure that our security program is operating at a world-class level.
Tools We Use
- Cloud Security: Lacework
- Languages: Python 3, TypeScript
- Libraries: FastAPI, SQLAlchemy, React
- Datastores: Postgres, Redis
- Infrastructure: AWS (Fargate, ECS, S3, and more), Spark and Kafka
- Monitoring: Datadog, PagerDuty
- Version Control: Github
- Vulnerability Management: Snyk, Semgrep
You’ll be great for this role if you have:
- 0 → 1 security experience: You have 5+ years experience in security and/or software engineering roles with a demonstrated history of working on security-related projects or with responsibilities as a security generalist.
- Strong cross-functional experience: You love partnering with other teams to help both teams achieve their goals.
- Strong technical depth and breadth: You have technical experience with building secure platforms and products at a deep level. You are excited to perform security design and code reviews. You want to understand security systems and improve their efficiency and scalability.
- Thrive in ambiguity: You love tackling ambiguous problems in a fast-paced environment with an optimistic and energizing attitude.
- Innovation at Scale: You seek opportunities to lead the industry in implementing the latest security and privacy technologies.
- Results driven: You care deeply about creating impact and driving results for Headway’s business.
- Mission driven: You are motivated by Headway’s mission, increasing access to high quality mental health care.
Our interview process
After you apply to Headway, here are some details of what to expect during the interview process:
- Initial screen: You’ll connect with someone in recruiting so you can learn more about the team, Headway’s mission and exciting growth, and we can get a better idea of your background.
- First round: You'll meet with a member of our Security Engineering team for introductions and an architecture interview. Conducted similarly to a System Design interview, we’ll learn more about your knowledge of the role of security in engineering systems and web architecture.
- Final rounds: You’ll meet several more team members for technical and non-technical interviews, including our CISO who this role reports to, and leave with a fuller picture of what it’s like to work at Headway.
- References and the Offer: Our favorite part of the process! We'll send over all of the details, including specifics on employee equity, and congratulatory messages from excited future team members!
Compensation & Benefits
The expected base pay range for this position is $218,500 - $273,125, based on a variety of factors including qualifications, experience, and geographic location. In addition to base salary, this role may be eligible for an equity grant, depending on the position and level.
We are committed to offering a comprehensive and competitive total rewards package, including robust health and wellness benefits, retirement savings, and meaningful ownership opportunities through equity. Compensation decisions are made holistically, ensuring fairness and alignment with market benchmarks while recognizing individual contributions and potential.
Benefits offered include:
- Equity compensation
- Medical, Dental, and Vision coverage
- HSA / FSA
- 401K
- Work-from-Home Stipend
- Therapy Reimbursement
- 16-week parental leave for eligible employees
- Carrot Fertility annual reimbursement and membership
- 13 paid holidays each year as well as a Holiday Break during the week between December 25th and December 31st
- Flexible PTO
- Employee Assistance Program (EAP)
- Training and professional development
Diversity & Inclusion
We believe a team's strength is in its people, and we cannot achieve this mission without a team that reflects the diversity of this problem – across race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, age, national origin, religion, family status, disability, military status, and experience. Headway is committed to the full inclusion of all qualified individuals. As part of this commitment, Headway will ensure that persons with disabilities are provided with reasonable accommodations. If reasonable accommodation is needed to participate in the job application or interview process, to perform essential job functions, and/or receive other benefits and privileges of employment, please inform the recruiter when they contact you to schedule your interview.
E-Verify & Fraud Prevention
Headway participates in E-Verify. To learn more, click here.
A notice to Headway applicants: To protect yourself against phishing and recruitment fraud, please note that Headway only accepts applications through our official careers page at https://headway.co/careers. Headway will never refer you to external websites, ask for payment or personal information, or conduct interviews via messaging apps. All official communication will come from a @findheadway.com email address. If you are contacted by someone claiming to be from Headway via an unofficial channel, please do not share any information and report it as spam.
Key skills/competency
- Senior Security Engineer
- Product Security
- Application Security
- Cloud Security
- AWS
- Python
- TypeScript
- Vulnerability Management
- Incident Response
- Security Operations
Skills & topics
- Senior Security Engineer
- Product Security
- Application Security
- Cloud Security
- AWS
- Python
- TypeScript
- Vulnerability Management
- Incident Response
- Security Operations
- Security Engineering
- Software Engineering
- Cybersecurity
- Risk Management
- Threat Modeling
How to get hired
- Tailor your resume: Highlight 5+ years of security experience and cross-functional collaboration. Emphasize building secure platforms and products.
- Showcase your skills: Demonstrate experience with cloud security, specific languages (Python, TypeScript), and tools like AWS, Snyk, and Semgrep.
- Prepare for technical interviews: Be ready for architecture and system design questions focusing on security in engineering systems.
- Articulate your passion: Connect your experience to Headway's mission of improving mental healthcare access.
- Understand the process: Be aware of the initial screen, architecture interview, and final technical/non-technical rounds.
Technical preparation
Behavioral questions
Frequently asked questions
- What is the interview process for a Senior Security Engineer at Headway?
- The interview process for a Senior Security Engineer at Headway typically involves an initial recruiter screen, a first-round architecture interview with a Security Engineering team member, and final rounds with various team members, including the CISO. The architecture interview is similar to a System Design interview, focusing on your knowledge of security within engineering systems and web architecture.
- What are the key responsibilities for a Senior Security Engineer at Headway?
- As a Senior Security Engineer at Headway, you will be responsible for building and driving product and application security engineering efforts. This includes partnering with product and engineering teams to ensure secure design and development, enhancing automated security tooling, defining and building application guardrails, and assisting in ongoing security operations like incident response and vulnerability management.
- What technical skills are important for the Senior Security Engineer role at Headway?
- Strong technical skills are crucial for this role. This includes experience with cloud security (e.g., Lacework), languages like Python and TypeScript, libraries like FastAPI, and infrastructure on AWS. Proficiency with vulnerability management tools such as Snyk and Semgrep, as well as monitoring tools like Datadog, is also highly valued.
- How does Headway foster a secure development environment for its engineers?
- Headway aims to 'make the safe way, the easy way' by defining and building application guardrails. This empowers developers to build securely by default and helps instill a culture of secure development across the engineering team. The Senior Security Engineer will play a key role in this initiative.
- What is the salary range for the Senior Security Engineer position at Headway?
- The expected base pay range for the Senior Security Engineer position at Headway is $218,500 - $273,125 annually. This range is based on factors like qualifications, experience, and geographic location. The role may also be eligible for an equity grant.
- What kind of security experience does Headway look for in a Senior Security Engineer?
- Headway is looking for candidates with '0 -> 1 security experience', meaning 5+ years in security and/or software engineering roles with a demonstrated history of working on security-related projects or as a security generalist. Experience in building secure platforms and products is highly valued.
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