Leads BackOps’ infrastructure and security engineering team, owning multi-cloud and on-premise infrastructure, reliability, networking, access controls, secrets, vulnerability management, SOC 2 controls, and security automation. The role includes hiring and mentoring engineers, establishing paved roads and operational standards, translating risks for executives and customers, improving incident response, and building scalable security and infrastructure functions.
About BackOps
BackOps AI transforms supply-chain operations with agentic AI that automates complex workflows, freeing teams to focus on what matters most. Headquartered in the San Francisco Bay Area, we foster a culture of innovation, ownership, and measurable impact.
The Role
Infrastructure and Security owns the ground everything at BackOps runs on: multi-cloud and on-prem deployment, reliability and SLOs, private networking, least-privilege access, and SOC 2. We are seeking an engineering leader to run that team.
Our agents take real actions inside customers' live operations, and that sets the bar for this work. This team does not write reports about risk. It engineers classes of risk out of existence and ships the result as paved roads the rest of engineering takes because they are the fastest path.
You should want to be close to the work: read a design, review an access model, and recognize when an estimate does not add up.
Your Impact
In this role, you will own the reliability and the security posture of everything BackOps runs, and you will build the team that carries it as the company scales.
- Lead, mentor, and grow a high-performing team of infrastructure and security engineers. Hire, coach, and develop the talent on it, and set the bar for who joins.
- Own our infrastructure: multi-cloud and on-prem deployment, reliability and SLOs, private networking, and the cost of running all of it.
- Own our security posture: identity and least-privilege access, secrets management, vulnerability management, and the controls behind SOC 2.
- Build security into how engineering already works rather than bolting it on afterward. Guardrails in CI/CD, and paved roads teams take because they are the easiest path.
- Set a high bar for what done means: tested code, observability, operational readiness, and runbooks someone who did not build the system can work from. AI-assisted work ships with a human owning it.
- Run a planning rhythm where the team commits to an outcome and the reason it matters. We measure the risk we remove, not the tickets we close.
- Protect a sustainable pace. Heroics are a signal that a system needs fixing, not something to celebrate.
- Translate a fast-moving risk picture into something leadership and customers can act on, including enterprise security reviews.
What We're Looking For
- 5+ years managing engineers, on top of a strong hands-on infrastructure or security engineering background.
- Deep grounding in cloud-native architecture: AWS and/or GCP, Kubernetes, infrastructure as code, and CI/CD.
- Real depth in security engineering: identity and access, least-privilege models, secrets management, and vulnerability management. Enough to build it, not only to review it.
- A track record of taking a loosely defined, high-stakes mandate and turning it into sequenced, measurable delivery.
- Experience shipping through teams you do not own, where relationships rather than org charts decide whether the work lands.
- Experience putting risk in front of executives and customers, including saying clearly what is still unknown.
- Comfortable when requirements change week to week and the right answer is not known yet.
- Clear written and verbal communication with engineers, executives, and customers.
Nice to Have
- SOC 2 Type I/II, ISO 27001, or similar audits taken end to end.
- Compliance automation tooling such as Vanta or Drata.
- Multi-tenant SaaS, or on-prem and customer-hosted deployment.
- Security or platform capabilities delivered as an internal product with real adoption numbers behind them.
- Standing up a function where none existed: charter, practices, and the culture around it.
- Growing a team quickly while the bar went up rather than down.
- Securing AI or agentic systems, where the software takes actions on its own.
What Success Looks Like
- Our controls are operating and measurable, not just documented.
- Enterprise security reviews stop being a scramble and stop holding up deals.
- Engineers take the paved road because it is the fastest path, not because a policy says to.
- Access is least-privilege by default, and nobody needs standing production access to do their job.
- Incidents get shorter, and the same one does not come back.
- The team grows and the bar goes up at the same time.
Why BackOps
- Own the infrastructure and security of an AI-native company while both are still being shaped.
- Our agents take real actions in customer operations, which makes this work matter more here than it does in most places.
- Small team with real autonomy and direct access to founders and customers.
- Backed by exceptional investors and advisors.
Rewards
- Competitive salary and meaningful equity.
- Comprehensive health, dental, and vision coverage.
- 401(k) plan, disability insurance, and life insurance.
- Flexible time off.
- Daily meals in the office, and regular team events and offsites.
BackOps AI San Francisco, California, USA Office
San Francisco, CA, United States
BackOps AI San Ramon, California, USA Office
San Ramon, United States
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