Director Software Engineering - AppSec Platform

Position Summary

Join Harness at a defining moment for application security — the moment AI stopped being a feature of the attack surface and became the attack surface itself. Harness is the leading AI-native software delivery platform, helping engineering teams build, test, secure, and deploy software faster and more safely. We're backed by $600M+ in funding, led by AppDynamics founder Jyoti Bansal, and recognized as a Leader in the Gartner Magic Quadrant™ for DevSecOps Platforms.

Our Web Application and API Protection (WAAP) team protects the APIs and applications that power some of the world's most demanding digital businesses — at a moment when API traffic, AI agent endpoints, and machine-to-machine communication are growing faster than any human security team can manually review. WAAP also owns Harness's AI Security capabilities, putting this team at the center of some of the most important emerging problems in the industry in AI era: discovering and inventorying AI usage across an enterprise, red-teaming AI systems and agents before attackers do, and building the AI firewall layer that governs how models and agents are allowed to act.

We're looking for a Director of Engineering to lead WAAP's next chapter — taking a product that already protects mission-critical, API-first traffic at scale for global customers and growing its footprint into AI Discovery, AI red-teaming, and AI firewall capabilities as enterprises figure out how to secure their own AI adoption. This is a hands-on, high-impact leadership role combining product ownership, architectural depth, and direct customer partnership, reporting into AppSec engineering leadership and working closely with a team that already has strong managers and senior ICs in place across every function.

About the Role

As Director of Engineering for WAAP, you'll own the technical vision, roadmap, and execution for a product line defending live, high-value traffic for global customers — and help point the team toward where AI-era protection needs to go next, from AI/agent discovery to red-teaming to enforcement at the AI firewall layer. You'll split your time between technology leadership, product and roadmap ownership, and cross-functional collaboration — partnering closely with the AST and Software Supply Chain teams that make up Harness's broader AppSec portfolio.

Key Responsibilities

• Define the AI-era WAAP vision — set strategy for runtime API protection, bot and abuse defense, and AI security as machine traffic and agentic workloads reshape what "web application protection" means.
• Shape the AI Security roadmap — identify where WAAP should invest next in AI Discovery (finding and inventorying AI/agent usage across an enterprise), AI red-teaming (proactively probing models and agents for weaknesses), and the AI firewall (governing and enforcing how models and agents are allowed to act) — a fast-moving space with significant room to define what good looks like.
• Own architecture and platform depth — provide hands-on technical leadership across API discovery, runtime traffic analysis, and detection efficacy, continuing the move toward a unified, efficient architecture across the broader AST/WAAP stack.
• Build and develop the team — hire, grow, and retain strong engineers and leaders, building on managers and senior ICs already in place across the org.
• Partner directly with customers — engage with enterprise customers on escalations, roadmap input, and adoption of new AI-era protection capabilities.
• Drive quality and enterprise readiness — own reliability, incident response, and production health across WAAP, closing execution gaps with rigor and discipline.
• Contribute to the AppSec portfolio strategy — collaborate across AST and Software Supply Chain Security to ensure WAAP's roadmap reinforces a coherent, best-in-class security platform.
• Represent Harness externally — engage with the security community, industry panels, and customers as a credible voice on API security and AI-era application defense.

About You

You are a strong people leader with empathy and growth mindset. You lead with technical depth, not title. You've scaled distributed systems and engineering teams through hypergrowth, you learn fast in new domains, and you're drawn to the kind of ambiguity that comes with building in a space — AI security — that's still being invented. You think like a product engineer even in a leadership seat — close to the technical decisions, close to customers, and willing to get hands-on when it matters. 

Required Experience & Qualifications

• 15-20 years of backend or platform engineering experience; 8+ years leading high-performing engineering teams.
• Proven success building and scaling engineering orgs in fast-paced, high-growth environments.
• Hands-on architectural experience with high-throughput, distributed systems and scalable APIs.
• Strong interest in applying AI to security problems — discovery, detection, and response.
• Clear, confident communicator who can operate across engineers, executives, and customers.
• Organized, action-oriented leader who drives results while protecting team health.
• BS in Computer Science or equivalent practical experience.
• A builder's instinct for applying AI/agentic approaches to security workflows, not just security to AI products.
• Domain knowledge in application security, API security, WAAP/WAF, bot/abuse defense, or AI security is preferred