Manager, Security Defense Engineering at DigitalOcean

Key Facts

Remote From:

Kentucky (USA) , Massachusetts (USA)

Full time

Mid-level (2-5 years)

English

Hard Skills

Other Skills

•
People Management
•
Team Leadership
•
Mentorship
•
Empathy

Roles & Responsibilities

2+ years of experience leading a team of security engineers or analysts (6 direct reports) with a track record of developing talent.
Deep technical background in Infrastructure Security, Security Operations, or Security Engineering, with hands-on experience across IAM (ZTNA), VPNs, Vault, endpoint security, IDS, and security monitoring programs.
Proven ability to define clear priorities, reduce context switching, unblock engineers, and ensure visibility and credit for their work.
Excellent communication skills to translate complex security risks into business context and build cross-functional partnerships.

Requirements:

Lead and grow the team of 6 infrastructure security engineers and security analysts, mentoring, hiring, and supporting career development; maintain a high bar for technical execution.
Scale security infrastructure by guiding Infrastructure Security engineers in building and maintaining systems (Vault, VPNs, LDAP, Network IDS) and overseeing IaC automation with Ansible, Chef, and Terraform; evolve IAM and endpoint security for production and corporate environments; manage on-call rotation.
Mature detection engineering by leading Security Analysts in first-line defense, triaging alerts, building detections, monitoring for suspicious activity, and coordinating with DFIR to ground detections in real incidents.
Build bridges, not walls by fostering cross-functional relationships with IT, Finance, Internal Audit, and Product Engineering; serve as proactive security partners who navigate security challenges with clarity and confidence.

Job description

Dive in and do the best work of your career at DigitalOcean. Journey alongside a strong community of top talent who are relentless in their drive to build the simplest scalable cloud. If you have a growth mindset, naturally like to think big and bold, and are energized by the fast-paced environment of a true industry disruptor, you’ll find your place here. We value winning together—while learning, having fun, and making a profound difference for the dreamers and builders in the world.

We’re looking for a security manager passionate about defending the enterprise to lead a team of Security Engineers and Analysts.

You will manage a team dedicated to defending DigitalOcean’s corporate and production environments, reporting to the Director of Security. At the heart of this team's mission lies a commitment to building and maintaining robust systems that keep DigitalOcean's production and corporate infrastructure safe, secure, and defensible. We protect DigitalOcean from internal and external threats by implementing security tools and processes. We collaborate with teams to provide secure-by-design solutions that remove obstacles to productivity, embodying a "yes, and" philosophy rather than "no."

What You’ll Do:

Lead and grow the team

You will manage, mentor, and hire for a team of 6 infrastructure security engineers and security analysts ranging from junior to staff levels.
You will support team members’ career growth, manage performance, and ensure the team maintains a high bar for technical execution.

Scale security infrastructure

You will lead Infrastructure Security engineers in building and maintenance of critical systems including Vault, VPNs, LDAP, and Network IDS sensors.
You will oversee the maintenance of mission-critical Infrastructure as Code automation, leveraging tools like Ansible, Chef, and Terraform while leading the strategic evolution of IAM and endpoint security for both production and corporate infrastructure.
Maintain the operational health of the team’s platforms and services by overseeing a sustainable on-call rotation, serving as a secondary escalation point to support your engineers during major infrastructure disruptions or outages.

Mature detection engineering

You will lead Security Analysts in building a first line of defense, triaging corporate alerts, and building robust detections.
You will ensure the team effectively monitors for suspicious activity and executes the crucial initial steps of alert triage to activate Incident Response.
Collaborate closely with ICs and leaders in Digital Forensics and Incident Response (DFIR) to ensure the detection pipeline is grounded in reality, building high-fidelity alerts that map directly to potential security incidents and threat actor behaviors.

Build bridges, not walls

You will foster strong cross-functional relationships by working closely with ICs and leaders across both corporate and technical teams, including IT, Finance, Internal Audit, and Product Engineering.
You will lead your team to be proactive "yes, and" partners who help stakeholders navigate security challenges with clarity and confidence.

What You’ll Add to DigitalOcean:

Experienced management

You have 2+ years of experience leading a team of security engineers or analysts.
You are comfortable stepping into a role with 6 direct reports and have a track record of elevating talent across all levels (junior to staff) and keeping them engaged and unblocked.

Technical context

You possess a deep background in Infrastructure Security, Security Operations, or Security Engineering.
You lead with technical credibility, providing meaningful feedback on complex systems across Identity (IAM, ZTNA), Infrastructure (VPNs, Endpoint, IDS, Vault), and Security Observability platforms.
You have direct experience with security monitoring programs and a passion for maturing enterprise defense.

Servant leadership

You measure your own success by the success of your team.
You have a track record of defining clear priorities to reduce context switching, clearing operational paths so your engineers and analysts can focus on technical execution, and ensuring they receive visibility and credit for their work.

Empathy & communication

You translate complex security risks into business context for leadership and teach your team to communicate with empathy and clarity.
You effectively communicate roadmaps, milestones, target dates, and project status to both your direct leadership and the extended security leadership team.

Compensation Range:

$180,000 - $210,000

*This is a remote role.

JR: 2026-7588

#LI-Remote

Why You’ll Like Working for DigitalOcean

We innovate with purpose. You’ll be a part of a cutting-edge technology company with an upward trajectory, who are proud to simplify cloud and AI so builders can spend more time creating software that changes the world. As a member of the team, you will be a Shark who thinks big, bold, and scrappy, like an owner with a bias for action and a powerful sense of responsibility for customers, products, employees, and decisions.
We prioritize career development. At DO, you’ll do the best work of your career. You will work with some of the smartest and most interesting people in the industry. We are a high-performance organization that will always challenge you to think big. Our organizational development team will provide you with resources to ensure you keep growing. We provide employees with reimbursement for relevant conferences, training, and education. All employees have access to LinkedIn Learning's 10,000+ courses to support their continued growth and development.
We care about your well-being. Regardless of your location, we will provide you with a competitive array of benefits to support you from our Employee Assistance Program to Local Employee Meetups to flexible time off policy, to name a few. While the philosophy around our benefits is the same worldwide, specific benefits may vary based on local regulations and preferences.
We reward our employees. The salary range for this position is based on market data, relevant years of experience, and skills. You may qualify for a bonus in addition to base salary; bonus amounts are determined based on company and individual performance. We also provide equity compensation to eligible employees, including equity grants upon hire and the option to participate in our Employee Stock Purchase Program.
DigitalOcean is an equal-opportunity employer. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, color, ancestry, national origin, caste, sex, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity or expression, age, disability, medical condition, pregnancy, genetic makeup, marital status, or military service.

Application Limit: You may apply to a maximum of 3 positions within any 180-day period. This policy promotes better role-candidate matching and encourages thoughtful applications where your qualifications align most strongly.

Ready to apply?

APPLY

Share ·