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. NodeZero has been adopted by organizations of all sizes, from small educational institutions to government agencies and Global 100 enterprises. It is used by IT Ops/SecOps teams, consulting pentesters, and MSSPs and MSPs.
We are a fusion of former U.S. Special Operations cyber operators, startup engineers & operators, and formerly frustrated cybersecurity practitioners. We're committed to helping solve our common security problems: ineffective security tools and false positives, resulting in alert fatigue, blind spots, "checkbox” security culture, cybersecurity skills shortage, and the long lead time and expense of hiring outside consultants. Collectively, we are a team of learn-it-alls, committed to a culture of respect, collaboration, ownership, and results.
As a remote first company, we require minimum 25Mbps consumer grade broadband connection.
What You'll Do
As Director of Software Engineering – Offensive Security, you’ll lead the strategy, design, and development of NodeZero’s offensive capabilities, driving innovation in autonomous attack content, exploit development, and platform scalability. You’ll manage multiple engineering teams, balancing deep technical expertise with product and organizational leadership.
This role sits above our offensive engineering leaders and pods (Attack Engineering) and will play a key role in scaling the offensive product organization as we continue to expand NodeZero’s reach and sophistication.
Key Responsibilities
Leadership & Strategy:
Lead and scale Horizon3.ai’s Offensive Engineering organization, overseeing teams responsible for exploit development, offensive content, and attack automation within the NodeZero platform. Set clear technical and product direction for how NodeZero identifies, exploits, and validates vulnerabilities across large, complex environments.
Product Ownership:
Partner closely with Product, Precision Defense, and Platform teams to define and deliver offensive capabilities that directly influence the roadmap and enhance customer outcomes. Drive execution from proof-of-concept through production-transforming cutting-edge attack research into scalable, productized features.
Technical Depth:
Stay hands-on enough to guide architectural decisions and evaluate complex exploit and automation approaches. Mentor technical leads in building resilient, modular systems that power NodeZero’s offensive testing engine.
Team Building:
Build, mentor, and scale diverse teams of software engineers, exploit developers, and offensive researchers.
Foster a culture of collaboration, creativity, and engineering excellence that bridges traditional offensive and product software development.
Cross-Functional Collaboration:
Collaborate across engineering, product, and GTM teams to align offensive innovation with business priorities, and ensure delivery of measurable, impactful capabilities for customers.
This is a highly visible leadership role central to Horizon3.ai’s mission of delivering continuous, autonomous security testing at scale.
What You’ll Bring
Proven experience leading and scaling engineering teams in offensive or cybersecurity product development, ideally within a fast-paced startup or growth-stage environment.
Strong technical background in software development and system architecture, with hands-on experience in offensive security domains such as exploit development, vulnerability research, attack automation, or red teaming.
Demonstrated success taking offensive capabilities or SaaS products from concept to market, including driving POCs, MVPs, and production launches.
Deep understanding of distributed systems, automation pipelines, and large-scale SaaS platforms, with the ability to guide architectural and design decisions.
A product-oriented mindset, skilled at balancing technical excellence, customer impact, and speed to market.
Exceptional leadership and collaboration skills—experienced in managing managers, aligning cross-functional teams, and partnering effectively with Product and GTM stakeholders.
Excellent analytical, communication, and storytelling abilities—capable of translating complex offensive engineering concepts into clear, actionable direction.
High degree of initiative and ownership; creative, detail-oriented, and results-driven.
Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related field (or equivalent experience).
Required Tech Stack Experience
Deep expertise in offensive security techniques, frameworks, and tooling (e.g. Metasploit, Cobalt Strike, Sliver, or custom exploit frameworks).
Proficiency in at least one modern object-oriented programming language such as Python, Go, C++, or C#, with experience building and maintaining large-scale software systems.
Strong understanding of vulnerability research, exploit development, and post-exploitation automation, with the ability to translate offensive tradecraft into scalable product capabilities.
Solid grasp of platform design, system architecture, and automation pipelines, including CI/CD, containerization, and infrastructure-as-code principles.
Experience with cloud infrastructure and services (AWS, Azure, GCP), as well as modern DevOps and observability practices.
Deep familiarity with network protocols, multiple operating systems (Windows, Linux, macOS, Kali, Ubuntu), and common enterprise technologies.
Hands-on experience building or leading engineering for B2B SaaS or security platforms, ideally within a cyber or offensive security company.
Working knowledge of databases (PostgreSQL, Neo4j, or similar) and data flow design.
Awareness of cybersecurity industry standards and trends, with an ability to bridge technical and product perspectives.
Bonus Qualifications:
Offensive security certifications such as OSCP, OSEP, OSED, or GPEN.
Experience mentoring teams on offensive tradecraft or developing proprietary offensive tooling.
Travel Required
We are a fully remote company, and this job may require up to 10% of travel to be successful.
Compensation and Values
At Horizon3, we believe that our people are our greatest asset, and our compensation philosophy reflects this core value. We are committed to fostering an environment where all employees feel valued, respected, and rewarded for their contributions. Our compensation structure is designed to be fair, competitive, and transparent, ensuring that every team member is recognized and compensated equitably across roles, levels, and locations.
In accordance with various State’s transparency regulations, we provide the following salary range information for this position:
Base salary range: $240,000 - $285,000 annually. The exact salary will be determined based on the selected candidate’s location, qualifications, experience, and relevant skills.
Additional compensation: All full-time roles are eligible for an equity package in the form of stock options.
Perks of H
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