Staff Software Engineer, Pentest Experience

About this role

Lead the technical direction of backend systems for Horizon3’s Assessment Experience team. Build services, APIs, and data models that make NodeZero’s autonomous penetration-testing experience more outcome-focused and help customers identify risk, remediate issues, and verify fixes.

About the company

Horizon3.ai is a technology company specializing in cybersecurity solutions, focusing on automated penetration testing and threat detection for enterprises. They provide a range of services aimed at enhancing security posture and risk management for organizations across various sectors.

The team

Assessment Experience, within the Proactive Offense engineering organization.

Stack

What you'll do

• Own backend technical direction from concept through implementation and long-term evolution.
• Build scalable services, APIs, and asynchronous or event-driven workflows.
• Translate product and customer goals into architecture and execution plans.
• Lead cross-team technical work and define interfaces with partner teams.
• Write production code and set standards for testing, observability, reliability, and safe rollouts.
• Mentor engineers and influence technical standards across teams.
• Use customer feedback and production signals to improve the product experience.

What we're looking for

• 8+ years of software engineering experience, including sustained ownership of production backend systems.
• Experience building backend services in a modern language such as Python, Go, Rust, or TypeScript.
• Strong SQL and production experience with a relational database, including schema design and advanced queries.
• Cloud backend experience and familiarity with Docker and containerized applications.
• Experience designing APIs, data models, and asynchronous or event-driven systems.
• Operational experience with observability, testing, reliability, and production debugging.
• Track record of cross-team technical leadership, mentoring, and adopted technical documentation or standards.
• Bachelor’s degree in a related field or equivalent practical experience.

Nice to have

• Experience with GraphQL, graph databases such as Neo4j, ETL, or streaming data pipelines.
• Experience with observability tools such as Datadog, Prometheus, or Grafana.
• Experience building workflow-oriented, AI-assisted, or conversational product experiences.
• Background in vulnerability management, exposure management, cybersecurity SaaS, or penetration-testing products.

Benefits

• Stock options.
• Flexible vacation policy.
• Generous parental leave.
• Health, vision, and dental insurance for employees and families.
• Remote work with up to 10% travel.