Lead Security Engineer

About the role

LawnStarter is building a $150M+ marketplace for lawn care and home services. As the Lead Security Engineer you will take security from a distributed, informal practice to a deliberate, instrumented function, shaping the multi‑year direction and building the foundations for a future team.

Key responsibilities

• Own application security across PHP/Laravel and TypeScript/React, including threat modeling, secure SDLC, SAST, secret‑scanning and vulnerability management.
• Define and enforce cloud and infrastructure security on AWS (IAM, network, encryption, EKS/Kubernetes hardening) and partner with Cloud & DevOps.
• Drive compliance and data‑protection initiatives: map PCI scope, lead SOC 2 and LGPD readiness, manage vendor risk and answer security questionnaires.
• Strengthen detection and response capabilities using Datadog, Sentry and AWS signals, create incident runbooks and lead response when needed.
• Establish security standards for AI‑agent authored code, building automated gates and review conventions.
• Lay the groundwork for a security team by creating standards, playbooks and hiring criteria.

Required profile

• AI‑native: daily use of AI tools for triaging findings, threat modeling and code review.
• Deep expertise across at least three domains (appsec, cloud, compliance, incident response) with hands‑on experience building controls.
• Builder and emerging leader who enjoys shaping practice, setting standards and mentoring engineers before formal management.

Required skills

• PHP, Laravel
• TypeScript, React
• AWS (IAM, networking, encryption)
• EKS, Kubernetes
• PCI DSS, SOC 2, LGPD compliance
• Datadog, Sentry
• SAST, secret scanning, dependency scanning in CI pipelines
• Threat modeling and secure SDLC practices