Corporate Security Lead

Location

Torrance, CA

Full time

Engineering

• M3 $ 124,950 – $169,000
• M4 $ 152,100 – $205,850

Compensation at Northwood Space is based on role, level, location, and alignment with market data. Individual base pay is determined on a case‑by‑case basis and may vary depending on job‑related skills, education, experience, and technical expertise. In addition to base salary, Northwood Space offers long‑term incentives such as company stock options and discretionary performance bonuses. Benefits include equity, comprehensive health care, flexible vacation, retirement savings plans, and opportunities for professional development.

Northwood is deploying a global network of phased array ground stations that will fundamentally change how satellites communicate with Earth. These systems support real‑time, high‑throughput communications that commercial and government customers rely on for mission‑critical operations.

As Manager of IT Security & Operations, you will build and own our corporate IT, security operations from the ground up. This is the pathway to company wide leadership as the company scales - you will define how Northwood secures infrastructure that simply does not exist anywhere else.

Your immediate priorities are owning corporate IT and helpdesk operations and standing up our SIEM. You are the person responsible for keeping the company running day‑to‑day-endpoint management, identity, access, onboarding, helpdesk. Building the security monitoring foundation we need as a dual use company handling mission‑critical space communications. At the start you will manage our IT operations engineer and hire to build out the team: security engineers, IT operations staff, and additional roles as Northwood grows.

You bridge hands‑on Dev Sec Ops  and IT work with security and compliance strategy, progressively automating corporate IT while standing up detection, response, and capabilities. This role reports to the Head of Security.

• Own all corporate IT: identity management (Okta), device management (Intune/Jamf/FleetDM), endpoint security, SaaS administration, and helpdesk.

• Provide and oversee hands‑on IT support – new hire setup, desk deployment, A/V, asset management – while building automation to eliminate manual work over time.

• Drive Infrastructure as Code for IT systems. Build self‑service tooling and integrations that scale operations without scaling headcount linearly.

• Stand up Northwood’s SIEM‑platform selection, log ingestion across ground stations and cloud infrastructure, correlation rules, and automated alerting.

• Work with our product infrastructure engineers on building out things properly.

• Build SOC capabilities: detection and response playbooks, incident response processes, and continuous monitoring for distributed space communications infrastructure.

• Deploy and manage endpoint detection/response, email security, DLP, and zero‑trust controls.

• Hire and develop a team across security engineering and IT operations. You are building the org, not inheriting one.

• Collaborate across engineering, network operations, and mission management as the primary IT and security subject‑matter expert.

• 5+ years in IT, security, or Dev Sec Ops  engineering with experience leading or building teams.
• Hands‑on corporate IT background: identity providers (Okta, Azure AD), endpoint management, SaaS administration, and helpdesk operations.
• Experience deploying and operating SIEM platforms and building security monitoring programs.
• Basic knowledge of compliance frameworks (i.e. NIST 800, SOC 2, Fed Ramp).
• Technical depth with Infrastructure as Code, scripting (Python, Bash, Power Shell), and cloud environments (AWS).
• Experience in regulated or compliance‑heavy environments.
• Ability to obtain and maintain TS/SCI clearance.

• Active TS clearance or higher.
• Experience in aerospace, defense, or critical infrastructure industries.
• Hands‑on with SIEM platforms (Splunk, Sentinel, Panther) and EDR solutions (Crowd Strike, Sentinel One).
• Experience scaling IT and…