Head of Security Engineering; DevSecOps & CISO

Position: Head of Security Engineering (DevSecOps & CISO)
Head of Security Engineering (Dev Sec Ops  & CISO)
ABOUT SMARKETSSmarkets is a prediction market exchange for sports and political trading, having handled over $50 billion in volume since 2010. We're upending sports betting with the fairest prices, the best technology, and a superior customer experience — powered by attracting great people and building a high-performance environment where they thrive. We're looking for an atypical candidate with strong regulated-business experience to support our growing CFTC business.

THE ROLE This is our inaugural security hire, working alongside Infrastructure to protect the distributed, real-time systems behind our trading engine. You'll lead our information security programme across our core products and our DCM/DCO entities — a founding build, standing up security engineering from the ground up through go-live and maturing it as we scale. Reporting directly to senior leadership and the Board, you'll own security posture updates and ensure our risk management and incident response frameworks exceed regulatory and operational standards.

ABOUT YOUSecurity expert with hands-on experience building security engineering/Dev Sec Ops  capabilities in a cloud-native, high-growth environment — ideally financial services or exchange infrastructure

Excellent communication skills for executive, board, and regulatory audiences

Familiarity with CFTC system safeguards expectations, including 17 C.F.R. § 38.1051 and § 39.18 or similar regulatory requirements

Strong grasp of application security principles (OWASP Top 10, NIST) and secure SDLC practices

Proficiency with CI/CD tooling (Git Hub Actions, Git Lab CI, Jenkins, Azure Dev Ops, CircleCI) and security tools (Snyk, Aqua, Trivy, Checkov, Twistlock, Clair)
Hands-on expertise securing AWS/Azure/GCP, Kubernetes, containers, and IaCProficiency in Python, Bash, Go, or similarRESPONSIBILITIESFirst dedicated security engineering hire, working from within Infrastructure and Engineering teams to establish and evolve Smarkets' security capabilities

Own regulatory/industry engagement (including CFTC), reflecting external expectations in internal practice

Define a pragmatic, risk-based security strategy across cloud infrastructure, applications, trading systems, and corporate environment

Lead or support the investigation, containment and remediation of security incidents, including post-incident root cause analysis and corrective actions.

Work with Engineering teams to build security into the SDLC — SAST, DAST, SCA, container/IaC scanning in CI/CD — without becoming a delivery bottleneck

Implement controls across AWS, Kubernetes, containers, and IaC, hardening identity, secrets, and network access

Establish security monitoring and detection across applications, APIs, and infrastructure

Develop and maintain security policies, standards, and controls meeting DCM/DCO requirements

Maintain evidence and documentation to support regulatory examinations and audits

Act as a security partner to engineers, building a culture of ownership over securityDESIRABLEPersonal interest in sports, exchanges, or trading

Certifications:

DSOP, CKS, CISSP, CCSP, CSSLP, or AWS/Azure/GCP Security Specialty Track record of security automation at scale in Agile/Scrum Direct experience with regulators/examiners on technology and system safeguards

Familiarity with event contracts, prediction markets, or similar novel futures products under CFTCOur Values Our values are at the heart of everything we do - guiding how we work, collaborate, and innovate. They reflect what we expect of ourselves and each other to deliver the best results, while fostering a positive, high-performing environment:

Push to Win:
We set ambitious goals and relentlessly pursue them, always…