Assistant Vice President (AVP), Security Engineering (Executive Level)

Why USAA?

At USAA, our mission is to empower our members to achieve financial security through highly competitive products, exceptional service and trusted advice. We seek to be the #1 choice for the military community and their families.

Embrace a fulfilling career at USAA, where our core values – honesty, integrity, loyalty and service – define how we treat each other and our members. Be part of what truly makes us special and impactful.

We are proud to support active-duty military spouses. USAA roles may offer remote or hybrid flexibility for active-duty military spouses consistent with applicable policy and business needs.

The Opportunity

Job Profile Summary:

The Assistant Vice President (AVP) of Security Engineering is a senior leadership role responsible for setting the strategic direction and overseeing the execution of security engineering initiatives across the organization. This individual will build a team of distinguished engineers and principals who focus on developing security solutions across priority technology areas, including AI, Cloud, Data and more. This role demands a strong blend of technical expertise, strategic thinking, and people leadership to ensure robust security is embedded throughout the technology lifecycle and to protect the association from evolving threats. This role also requires executive influence skills to partner with other engineering, architecture and development roles from across the technology organization.

The AVP will lead a high performing team, foster a culture of innovation and continuous improvement, and act as a key subject matter expert influencing cross-functional security efforts.

This role is remote eligible in the continental U.S. with occasional business travel. However, individuals residing within a 60-mile radius of a USAA office will be expected to work on-site 4 days per week.

Key Responsibilities:

• Strategic Security Engineering Leadership:
  • Define and drive the security engineering strategy, ensuring security requirements are integrated into all aspects of the solution/application enablement and sustainment lifecycle.
  • Collaborate with architecture to help define the strategic direction for cross-functional and highly complex key technologies within specific security domains.
  • Lead the research, analysis, and troubleshooting of highly complex security issues, systems, tools, and vendor integrations, identifying, resolving, and reporting on them.
  • Advance professional development through active participation in industry organizations, publications, educational opportunities, networking, and professional societies.
• Technical Design & Development:
  • Design, develop, code, integrate, and test complex, cross-functional technical solutions with a primary focus on security, often collaborating with engineers and architects outside of the immediate team/department.
  • Apply Site Reliability Engineering (SRE) practices within their security domain to ensure highly available, performant, and secure systems.
  • Lead the implementation of event-driven security architectures, methods, and controls.
  • Advise on security architecture, methods, and controls required to meet security, compliance, and audit requirements.
• People Leadership & Development:
  • Lead, mentor, and guide a team of security engineers, fostering a culture of continuous learning, professional growth, and collaboration.
  • Ensure the team stays current with the latest security trends and technologies through ongoing development and training.
  • Conduct code and design reviews to ensure effective operations, accurate planning, and adherence to security best practices.
  • Drive engineering efficiencies within the team.
• Risk Management & Compliance:
  • Identify and manage existing and emerging risks stemming from business activities, ensuring risks are effectively identified, measured, monitored, and controlled in accordance with risk and compliance policies and procedures.
  • Collaborate with Security Analysts, IT, and Business Partners to tune, harden, and enhance security solutions and technologies to counter the latest trends and threats.
  • Ensure Information Security is integrated across the association by conducting comprehensive technology research to evaluate potential vulnerabilities in company systems.
• Cross-Functional Influence:
  • Influence and lead cross-functional efforts across the organization as a subject matter expert in their security domain.
  • Work closely with IT and Business Partners to ensure security solutions align with business objectives.
• Operational Excellence:
  • Independently resolve complex production issues and lead troubleshooting of end-to-end solutions that span multiple applications and systems.
  • Install, configure, troubleshoot, and maintain hardware and software related to security infrastructure.

Qualifications:

• Education: Bachelor's degree; OR 4 years of relevant education and/or experience.
• Experience:
  • 10 years of related experience in Security Engineering and/or Information Technology with a strong security focus.
  • 6 years of people leadership experience in building, managing and developing high-performing engineering teams, including performance management, coaching, and professional development.
  • Ability to foster a positive and high-performing team culture.
  • Demonstrated ability to mentor and develop junior engineers.
  • Proven experience leading and driving company-wide technology projects or initiatives.
  • Demonstrated experience leading and owning security strategies, solutions, and/or initiatives, with a proven ability to drive these efforts to successful completion.
  • Advanced experience with modern programming/scripting languages and frameworks.
  • Extensive experience designing, implementing, and leading security engineering activities utilizing modern DevSecOps practices.
  • Demonstrated ability to address complex production issues by effectively troubleshooting applications and systems.
  • Experience working with platform engineering concepts, including security best practices in infrastructure/policy as code, security architecture design patterns, security vendor integrations, and CI/CD pipelines with built-in application security controls.
  • Experience leading the implementation of event-driven security architecture, methods, and controls.
  • Experience advising on security architecture, methods, and controls required to meet security, compliance, and audit requirements.
  • Familiarity with cloud and emergent technologies such as: Public Cloud, Containerization, Security Data Lakes, ML/LLMs, GenAI, etc.

Compensation range: The salary range for this position is: $224,250-$403,650.

USAA does not provide visa sponsorship for this role. Please do not apply for this role if at any time (now or in the future) you will need immigration support (i.e., H-1B, TN, STEM OPT Training Plans, etc.).

Compensation: USAA has an effective process for assessing market data and establishing ranges to ensure we remain competitive. You are paid within the salary range based on your experience and market data of the position.

Employees may be eligible for pay incentives based on overall corporate and individual performance and at the discretion of the USAA Board of Directors.

The above description reflects the details considered necessary to describe the principal functions of the job and should not be construed as a detailed description of all the work requirements that may be performed in the job.

Long Term Incentive Plan: Cash payment for Executive level roles only, representing a cash payment which is both time and performance based.

Benefits: At USAA our employees enjoy best-in-class benefits to support their physical, financial, and emotional wellness. These benefits include comprehensive medical, dental and vision plans, 401(k), pension, life insurance, parental benefits, adoption assistance, paid time off program with paid holidays plus 16 paid volunteer hours, and various wellness programs. Additionally, our career path planning and continuing education assists employees with their professional goals.

For more details on our outstanding benefits, visit our benefits page on USAAjobs.com.

Applications for this position are accepted on an ongoing basis, this posting will remain open until the position is filled. Thus, interested candidates are encouraged to apply the same day they view this posting.

USAA is an Equal Opportunity Employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability, or status as a protected veteran.

About Us

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Find your purpose. Join our mission.

USAA is unlike any other financial services organization. The mission of the association is to facilitate the financial security of its members, associates and their families through provision of a full range of highly competitive financial products and services; in so doing, USAA seeks to be the provider of choice for the military community. We do this by upholding the highest standards and ensuring that our corporate business activities and individual employee conduct reflect good judgment and common sense, and are consistent with our core values of service, loyalty, honesty and integrity.

USAA attributes its long-standing success to its most valuable resource: our 35,000 employees. They are the heart and soul of our member-service culture. When you join us, you'll become part of a thriving community committed to going above for those who have gone beyond: the men and women of the U.S. military, their associates and their families. In order to play a role on our team, you don't have to be connected to the military yourself – you just need to share our passion for serving our more than 13 million members.

USAA is an EEO/AA Employer - applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, national origin, age, disability, genetic information, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, pregnancy, protected veteran status or other status protected by law.

California applicants, please review our HR CCPA - Notice at Collection here.