Senior Manager, Security Operations

About the Team

The Security Operations Team at Harness is a small, high-leverage organization covering Cloud & Network Security, Detection Engineering (SOC), and Identity & Access Management (IAM). We measure ourselves against NIST CSF 2.0, run a continuous red-team and penetration-testing program with external partners, and work directly with customers on security architecture reviews and briefings. We design for assume-breach: layered preventive controls, strong identity as the perimeter, and fast detection and response.

The Role

We are looking for a Senior Manager to own and lead three connected disciplines: Cloud Security, IAM, and the Security Operations Center (Detection & Response). You will manage and grow engineers and leads across these areas, set technical direction, and be the accountable owner for how Harness secures its cloud infrastructure, controls access to it, and detects and responds to threats against it.

This is a player-coach role. You are expected to go deep technically, make architecture calls, and also build the team, the operating cadence, and the metrics that show security maturity improving quarter over quarter.

What You Will Do

Cloud Security

• Own the security architecture and posture of Harness's multi-cloud and Kubernetes-based production environments, including network segmentation, workload isolation, secrets management, and hardened baselines.
• Drive secure-by-default infrastructure through policy-as-code (e.g., OPA), guardrails in CI/CD, and continuous posture management.
• Partner with Platform and SRE on dedicated-tenant and customer-hosted deployment models, including the controls that make those models safe at enterprise scale.
• Support the security of customer-facing runtime components such as the Harness Delegate, including token scoping, least-privilege execution, and containment of compromised components.

Identity & Access Management

• Own the workforce and workload identity strategy: SSO, MFA, privileged access, just-in-time access, service-account and machine-identity lifecycle, and access reviews.
• Advance Zero Trust principles across internal systems and production, using a central authority model with human-in-the-loop approvals for high-risk actions.
• Reduce standing privilege and credential sprawl; make least privilege measurable and auditable.

Security Operations & Detection Engineering

• Lead the SOC and Detection Engineering function: detection coverage, alert quality, triage, incident response, and on-call readiness.
• Build detections mapped to attacker techniques (MITRE ATT&CK) and validate them through purple-team exercises and red-team findings.
• Own the incident response lifecycle, from runbooks and tabletop exercises to post-incident reviews that feed back into engineering and control improvements.
• Improve automation and tooling (SIEM, SOAR, EDR, cloud-native logging) to reduce mean time to detect and respond.

Leadership & Program Management

• Hire, coach, and develop a high-performing team; set clear expectations, growth paths, and a healthy on-call culture.
• Translate NIST CSF 2.0 goals into a prioritized roadmap with clear owners, milestones, and executive-ready reporting.
• Work with external red-team and penetration-testing partners to scope exercises, triage findings, and drive remediation to closure.
• Support customer trust: contribute to security briefings, questionnaires, and architecture reviews, and communicate the shared responsibility model clearly and credibly.
• Present security posture, risk, and progress to senior leadership, including the executive team.

What We're Looking For

Required

• 10+ years in security engineering, cloud security, or security operations, with 3+ years managing technical security teams.
• Deep hands-on experience securing AWS, GCP, and/or Azure and Kubernetes environments at scale.
• Strong IAM background: SSO/federation, privileged access management, workload identity, and Zero Trust architecture.
• Proven experience running or building detection and response capabilities, including incident command for significant events.
• Experience with SIEM, SOAR, EDR, and cloud-native detection tooling, and with writing or reviewing detection logic.
• Working knowledge of security frameworks and compliance regimes (NIST CSF, SOC 2, ISO 27001, FedRAMP or similar).
• Excellent written and verbal communication; comfortable presenting to executives and to customer security teams.

Preferred

• Experience at a SaaS, DevOps, or developer-tools company, especially one with customer-hosted or hybrid components.
• Experience with policy-as-code (OPA/Rego), infrastructure-as-code, and CI/CD security.
• Experience with Enterprise Security.
• Familiarity with securing AI-enabled products and the supply chain around them.
• Relevant certifications (CISSP, CISM, GCP/AWS security specialty, GIAC) are a plus, not a requirement.

Harness is an equal opportunity employer. We welcome applicants from all backgrounds and are committed to an inclusive hiring process.

What you will have at Harness

• Experience building a transformative product
• End-to-end ownership of your projects
• Competitive salary
• Comprehensive healthcare benefit
• Flexible work schedule
• Paid Time Off and Parental Leave
• Monthly, quarterly, and annual social and team-building events
• Monthly internet reimbursement