Cognism
Director, Security Engineering & Operations
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Director, Security Engineering & Operations
Who Are We
Cognism is the leading provider of European B2B data and sales intelligence. Ambitious businesses of every size use our platform to discover, connect, and engage with qualified decision-makers faster and close more deals. Headquartered in London with global offices, Cognism’s contact data and contextual signals are trusted by thousands of revenue teams to eliminate the guesswork from prospecting.
The Role
At Cognism, the security of our data, our systems, and our clients’ systems is a business priority. Information security is embedded in the way we work, and we are driving a culture where the fastest path is the securest path. As the function continues to mature, we are now hiring for a Director of Security Engineering & Operations to report directly to our CISO.
In this role, you will:
- Own and drive the technical security strategy for Cognism’s web and data products, as well as our corporate environment.
- Be responsible for designing a security programme that protects our most sensitive assets: our data, our data fusion engine, and the logic that powers it.
- Partner with R&D leadership to help define and drive the long-term security engineering maturity roadmap, achieving alignment across engineering leaders, product leadership, and IT.
If you’re energized by the idea of shaping measurable security processes and controls, aligning engineering around secure-by-design principles, and elevating operational excellence, then this is the role for you.
This is a rare opportunity to define the technical security vision for a data-intensive product phase where AI, scale, and engineering velocity are creating new and exciting challenges. You will shape how Cognism builds securely for the next decade.
What Success Looks Like
Within 12 months, you will have:
- Delivered a unified security engineering roadmap aligned with engineering leadership.
- Matured secure SDLC adoption across Web and Data engineering.
- Improved MTTD/MTTR through stronger SOC operations.
- Invested in and mentored a team with clear ownership, KPIs, and engineering trust.
- Reduced engineering friction by creating developer-friendly guardrails.
What You’ll Own
Security Strategy & Engineering Integration
- Define and own Cognism's technical security strategy, ensuring embedding of security-by-design in web and data products, our data fusion engine, and corporate landscape.
- Align strategy to be pragmatic, risk-ranked, and compatible with engineering velocity.
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Work directly with product and technology leadership as a strategic partner to drive:
- Ownership and accountability, clearly agreeing ways of working between teams.
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Set and direct a secure SDLC strategy influencing engineers to coach/mentor our application security engineer for:
- Threat modeling program,
- Embedding security in CI/CD,
- Iteratively improving vulnerability management processes.
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Partner with engineering leadership to ensure risk-driven supply chain management across products.
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Work closely with Director of IT operations to ensure:
- Corporate security posture to mitigate risk.
- Guardrails protecting unacceptable risk without stifling innovation.
Data & AI Security
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Partner with VP of Data Engineering to strengthen:
- Security of enrichment engine, data pipelines, and warehouse ecosystems.
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Direct strategy considering:
- Data security across the full data stack from ingestion to warehouse,
- Access governance and data classification,
- Secrets management as nonnegotiables.
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Define and embed AI security as LLMs and agentic workflows expand:
- Collaborate with CISO to:
- Shape and implement an AI security posture,
- Stay ahead of the threat landscape via strong foundational security.
- Collaborate with CISO to:
Detection, Response & SOC Partnership
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Own strategic relationship with our 24/7 outsourced SOC, ensuring:
- Threat hunting, threat intelligence usage, and automated response quality,
- Higher than SLA compliance.
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Ensure Cognism has a:
- Holistic, well-maintained SIEM reflecting operational practices,
- Continuously improved SIEM based on evolving threat landscape.
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Develop internal team into:
- Trusted escalation layer with clear incident response playbooks,
- Rehearsed escalation paths and feedback loop improving detection over time.
Team & Culture
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Lead a team of application and infrastructure security engineers, setting standards for:
- Technical excellence and deep partnership.
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Build a security culture where developers:
- Raise security questions early and understand threat models,
- Take on ownership of remediations naturally, not based on policy.
-Be the security leader Cognism’s engineers want in meetings:
- Credible, trusted deep partner.
- Collaborative to be included and strategically impactful.
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What We Need
Leadership & Influence
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Experience building and transforming security programmes within product-led, engineering-first companies.
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Tracking record of effectively influencing engineering culture, earning trust without enforcing.
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Experience managing external security partners including 24/7 SOC, penetration testing vendors. Raise standards through clear performance accountability not just contract reviews.
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Ability to communicate risk in context:
- Business terms for exec/board,
- Technical language for engineers, maintaining precision in both.
Technical Foundation
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Strong AppSec expertise:
- OWASP, API security, SAST/DAST, secure SDLC,
- Hands-on experience with threat modeling challenging/supporting even senior engineers.
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Detailed understanding of data security, cloud data warehouses, and:
- Security and pipeline integrity directing relevant programs across tech departments.
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Cloud security fluency covering:
- Container/Kubernetes security,
- IAM design,
- Cloud-native security tooling.
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Engineering intelligence about AI/LLM security risks:
- Ability to assess integrations, establish guardrails, and evolve program as technology progresses.
Mindset
- Risk-based by instinct, prioritizing both technical and business impacts.
- Builder mindset: Fueled by creating structure in absentia, pragmatic about execution sequencing, outcome-focused over coverage.
- Genuinely curious about AI beyond its security implications: its potential to improve threat detection arenas.
Why Cognism
At Cognism, we aim to be more than just a company—we foster an inclusive community of brilliant, diverse people who collectively grow, challenge, and inspire each other daily. Your work here matters. At Cognism:
- Impact makes a real difference.
- Cultural values drive community dynamism.
Our values aren't merely written; they govern all facets of our operations: 🤝 We Own the Outcome Together. 🤓 We Deeply Understand our Customers. 🏆 We Celebrate Impact Regardless of Origin.
We equally commit to fostering an inclusive workplace. We welcome applications from all underrepresented groups in tech—ensesitivity beyond just qualifications в encouraged!
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