Senior Application Security Engineer

• Targeted base salary $145K – $183K 10% annual bonus

Forward Financing is a financial technology company based in Boston, Massachusetts with team members throughout the United States, Dominican Republic, and Canada. The company is on a mission to unlock the capital that fuels small businesses across America. Recognized as a Best Place to Work by Built In Boston and certified as a Great Place To Work®, Forward is investing in its employees, technology, and customer experience – with long-term success in mind every step of the way.

As a Senior Application Security Engineer, you'll find the vulnerabilities in Forward Financing's software before an attacker does. You'll pentest our core systems along with the AI systems and agents our engineers are shipping, and help shape how we test software that AI helped write. Our engineering organization is moving fast with AI, and our security testing needs to move at the same pace.

In this role you will:

Conduct manual penetration tests against each of our systems, and build the AI-assisted tooling and automation that extends how much ground those tests can cover.

Help define how we pentest AI. Bring us new ideas for testing LLM applications, agents, and agent-generated code, and build the ones that work into our regular testing.

Triage findings from our SAST tools, fix the vulnerabilities that are real, and tune the rules that produce false positives.

Perform secure code review across web applications, APIs, and AWS infrastructure.

Build tooling and security services within the Forward application stack, including AI-assisted tooling that speeds up the security team's own work.

Support the test-to-production review process so AI-built work is security-reviewed before promotion.

Explain risk to engineers in enough detail that they can prioritize and fix what you found.

Why you should apply:

Shape a growing function:
Our security program is early enough that your work sets the standard. You'll have influence over how we test, what tooling we build, and how we secure AI-built software.

Mission driven company:
Forward is a trusted source of fast, flexible funding for small businesses that have often been underserved by traditional financing options. When you join the team, you will help ensure all small businesses have access to the financial support they need to succeed.

Flexibility is a top priority:
Our employees are empowered to choose where they want to work (whether that’s from home, in the office, or a combination of both) with flexible hours.

5+ years in application security, offensive security, or product security.

Hands-on pentesting and code-review depth across web applications, APIs, and cloud infrastructure (AWS).

A hacker mentality. You're curious about how systems break, and you keep pulling on threads after the scanner comes back clean.

Interest in using AI to solve problems, whether that's in your own workflow or in the systems you're testing.

Understanding of AI/LLM attack surface: prompt injection, insecure agent tool use, and vulnerabilities characteristic of AI-generated code.

Experience with modern programming languages such as Ruby, Python, Type Script, or Go, and with secure SDLC practices.

Ability to communicate risk and priorities to other security and software engineers.

Typically has a Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science or equivalent technical degree, or equivalent industry experience.

Experience pentesting or red-teaming LLM applications and agentic systems.

OSCP/OSWE or comparable offensive certifications.

Experience contributing to bug-bounty or external testing programs.

Background in fintech or other regulated environments.

At Forward Financing, we're committed to fair and transparent compensation. We believe in providing a compensation package that recognizes your skills, experience, and the unique value you bring to our team. We take a market-based approach to pay, regularly reviewing benchmark data to ensure our compensation remains competitive, equitable, and aligned with our performance-driven culture.

Final offers are determined by a variety of factors, including the candidate's qualifications,…