Application Security Specialist

Role Description

What you'll do: Application Security Specialist in Enterprise will be responsible for leading and managing Application Penetration Testing & mature ZS’s Application Security Program. This role requires strategic, attacker-mindset thinking, deep application security expertise, and strong communication skills to manage and perform application penetration testing, supervise and mentor testing teams

 

• Typical daily work will consist of leading and performing advanced manual and automated application penetration tests on web, mobile, APIs, and microservices across production and pre-production environments.
• Perform in-depth secure code reviews and design-level security assessments in collaboration with development and DevSecOps teams.
• Assess authentication, authorization, session management, and identity flows across web, mobile, and API-driven architectures, including OAuth2, OIDC, SSO, and token-based designs.
• Identify, document, and articulate risks related to application vulnerabilities (e.g., OWASP Top 10, SANS 25), misconfigurations, and insecure design patterns.
• Perform business logic and abuse-case testing, identifying flaws that cannot be detected through automated tooling.
• Lead and mentor a team of AppSec testers, providing technical guidance, reviewing assessment outputs, and driving continuous skill development within the team.
• Utilize tools like Burp Suite Pro, Snyk, Checkmarx, Black Duck, OwaspZap and custom scripts to identify vulnerabilities at code and runtime levels.
• Ensure the highest quality of security testing by establishing and enforcing rigorous testing standards, peer reviews, and validation processes, ensuring all findings are accurate, reproducible, and aligned with industry best practices.
• Collaborate in DevSecOps initiatives by embedding security into the CI/CD pipelines
• Partner with product owners, developers, architects, and QA engineers to build secure-by-design applications.
• Provide mentorship and security guidance to internal stakeholders to raise overall security maturity.
• Support incident response and forensics activities as related to AppSec breaches.

 

What you’ll bring:

• Bachelor’s in computer science /management of computer information/information assurance or Cybersecurity
• 5+ years of Penetration Testing / Application Security / Offensive Security
• Must have Security Certifications:  OSCP / GPEN / OSWA / OSWE/CWES/CWEE/eWPTx
• Preferred Security Certifications: CRTP/CARTP, CRTE, OSEP, GRTP
• Preferred Security Cloud Certifications: AWS CLP, AWS Security Specialty
• Proven experience and deep expertise in application penetration testing, including business logic abuse, authentication/authorization flaws, and client-side vulnerabilities.
• Strong familiarity with OWASP ASVS, MASVS, and Top 10 lists.
• Proficiency with tools such as Burp Suite Pro, Postman, Fiddler and source code analysis platforms such as Checkmarx, Snyk, BlackDuck.
• Working knowledge of programming/scripting languages like Python, Java, JavaScript, C#, .Net or Go.
• Familiarity with cloud-native applications and platform-specific vulnerabilities (AWS, Azure, GCP).
• Thorough understanding of modern architectures: microservices, APIs, containers, Kubernetes, and serverless.
• Deep expertise in manual and automated application penetration testing, including identifying and exploiting vulnerabilities such as SQLi, XSS, SSRF, IDOR, CSRF, and authentication/authorization flaws.
• Ability to perform end-to-end testing of modern web applications, including RESTful and GraphQL APIs, single-page applications (SPAs), and microservices, with a focus on real-world attack scenarios and business logic exploitation.
• Experience with mobile application security testing (iOS/Android) and tools like MobSF, Frida, or Drozer.
• Familiarity with common reconnaissance, exploitation, and post exploitation techniques.
• Ability to clearly document findings and communicate risk effectively to technical and non-technical stakeholders.
• Strong Collaboration, Communication and Interpersonal skills with the ability to collaborate effectively with cross-functional teams, communicate complex technical concepts to non-technical stakeholders, and build consensus around security initiatives.
• Solid understanding of emerging threats, vulnerabilities, and exploits and an ability to think outside the box and emulate adversarial approaches.
• Fluency in English
• Client-first mentality
• Intense work ethic
• Collaborative spirit and problem-solving approach