[Hiring] Head of Product Security @Instacart

Role Description

We are seeking a Head of Product Security to lead and scale our product security programs across Instacart’s consumer, shopper, retailer, and enterprise product lines. This leader will drive the long-term vision for how product security supports our business, guiding multiple teams across:

• Offensive security
• Secure architecture
• Threat modeling
• Developer enablement

You will work closely with senior engineering and product leaders to embed security into fast-paced development cycles and ensure Instacart continues to ship secure, reliable products at scale. This is a high-impact role in a dynamic, rapidly evolving environment - ideal for a leader who thrives in ambiguity, enjoys building teams and systems from the ground up, and is energized by complex technical and organizational challenges.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, Math, or equivalent industry experience
• 10+ years of progressive experience in Security Engineering, Product Security, and Offensive Security/Penetration Testing, ideally in a high-scale, dynamic environment
• 5+ years leading and scaling multi-disciplinary security teams, including managing managers, responsible for large-scale production systems in high-stakes domains
• Deep expertise in driving secure architecture, advanced threat modeling, and application of security research to proactively identify and mitigate emerging risks at scale in mission-critical systems
• Strong understanding of emerging threats, including AI/ML related attacks, to drive measurable risk reduction across the organization
• Extensive experience securing cloud infrastructure (AWS, Azure, or GCP)
• Experience with DevSecOps, CI/CD security integration, and automation
• Knowledge of container security (Docker, Kubernetes) and microservices architectures
• Experience with infrastructure-as-code (Terraform, CloudFormation, Ansible)
• Strong ability to make data-driven decisions and prioritize initiatives that meaningfully improve key security metrics
• Excellent communication skills with technical and non-technical stakeholders

Requirements

• Define and lead Instacart’s long-term product security strategy, driving measurable improvements across all product surfaces
• Lead multiple product security teams, setting clear direction across offensive security, secure design, architecture reviews, and security tooling
• Partner with engineering and product orgs to integrate security seamlessly into the SDLC, enabling high-velocity development without compromising security
• Build scalable, durable capabilities by operationalizing security tooling, frameworks, and workflows used across engineering teams
• Guide teams through complex offensive security engagements to uncover security defects, anti-patterns, and emerging risks, driving mitigation plans across the organization
• Design and implement security controls for cloud environments (AWS, GCP, etc.)
• Build a security-first culture across engineering and operations teams

Benefits

• Highly market-competitive compensation and benefits
• Remote work flexibility
• New hire equity grant and annual refresh grants