[Hiring] Senior Manager, Vulnerability Assessment @The Nielsen Company

Role Description

Nielsen is seeking a proactive Senior Manager within the Product Security organization to drive and expand our cloud and application security initiatives. This role requires a balance of operational discipline, high-agency, and technical vision.

You will lead a group of skilled engineers and collaborate with development teams to transition our security framework toward a modern, automated, AI-driven DevSecOps model. You will be accountable for team performance, defining security policies, and ensuring compliance, while adapting departmental plans to address operational challenges. Additionally, you will provide subject matter guidance to employees and colleagues operating within policy guidelines with moderate managerial oversight.

Work Style & Mindset

• You prioritize business enablement over rigid perfectionism.
• You know how to make calculated risk trade-offs, focusing on the 20% of risks that cause 80% of the impact.
• You treat engineering teams as internal customers.
• You measure success not by how many vulnerabilities you find, but by how easily developers can fix them with minimal friction.
• You possess the grit and diplomatic skills to drive cultural change.
• You stay ahead of emerging tech trends, continuously evaluating how AI, cloud-native patterns, and modern tooling can simplify security operations.
• You maintain a steady, analytical composure during high-severity events or pipeline blockers.

Responsibilities

• Lead and mentor a high-performing Application Security engineering team, fostering professional development and aligning team priorities with organizational goals and operational challenges.
• Drive a forward-thinking Application and Pipeline Security strategy that transitions operations to an autonomous, AI-driven DevSecOps model.
• Partner collaboratively with Platform Engineering to define cloud security baselines and Policy-as-Code (PaC) guardrails.
• Oversee application penetration testing initiatives ensuring findings are triaged, fed into pipeline guardrails, and remediated within SLA.
• Establish comprehensive observability and regulatory standards across the development lifecycle.
• Implement structured prioritization protocols to effectively resolve existing security vulnerabilities across application environments and cloud infrastructures.
• Refine and calibrate scanning telemetry (SAST, DAST, SCA, IaC) to minimize false positives.
• Design automated response triggers within AWS ecosystems utilizing native orchestration tools.
• Cultivate an environment where security is seamlessly embedded into native development workflows.
• Architect and report on critical performance indicators, such as Mean Time to Remediate (MTTR) and Auto-Fix Acceptance Rates.

Qualifications

• Minimum of 5-8 years of experience in specialized roles across Application Security or Cloud Engineering, including at least 3 years in a management or leadership capacity.
• Demonstrated proficiency in designing AWS security governance and deploying automated incident mitigation within large-scale cloud ecosystems.
• Comprehensive technical mastery of CI/CD orchestration, containerization safeguards, and the integration of SAST/DAST/SCA solutions.
• Advanced automation capabilities with the ability to architect security tooling.
• Familiarity with emerging AI-enhanced security technologies.
• Bachelor’s degree in a technical field like Computer Science or Cybersecurity, or equivalent professional background.
• Substantial professional history serving as a Staff or Principal Software Engineer, or DevOps Specialist.
• Demonstrated track record of building strong, collaborative partnerships with software engineering and platform teams.
• Possession of elite certifications such as AWS Certified Security – Specialty or AWS Solutions Architect – Professional.

Benefits

• Comprehensive health and wellness plans.
• 401(k) with a Nielsen company match.
• Generous paid time off policy.
• Depending on the role, additional benefits may include a company-provided vehicle and/or discretionary incentive/bonus eligibility.

Compensation Transparency

The posted base salary range is a reasonable estimate that may be adjusted based on the final work location of the selected employee. Individual pay within the range is determined by factors such as experience, training, geography, certifications, and business needs. Beyond base salary, this role may be eligible for bonuses, equity, or other incentives.