Engineering Jobs in Washington, DC

Cloud Security Leadership Opportunity

In the cloud, every second counts. Sysdig stops attacks in real-time by instantly detecting changes in cloud security risk with runtime insights and open source Falco. Trusted by a large enterprise customer base, we are a well-funded startup, passionate open source enthusiasts at heart, and problem-solvers who are building and delivering powerful solutions to secure cloud-native applications.

We have an organizational focus on delivering value to customers. We appreciate diverse opinions and open dialogue to spur ideas and we believe in working together to achieve our goals. We're an international company that understands how to cultivate an inclusive environment across all teams.

And we're a great place to work too - we've been named a "Best Places to Work" by Inc, the San Francisco Business Time, and Built In, with recognitions ranging from "Best Benefits" to a "Best Company for Happiness".

We are looking for driven team members who want to join us on our mission to lead cloud security globally. Does this sound like the right place for you?

What You Will Do

• Team Leadership: Reporting to the Senior Director Engineering you will build, mentor, and lead a high-performing development team for Sysdig's next-generation Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) product.
• Execution & Delivery: Communicate team priorities, define development tasks aligned with broader organizational goals, and own the planning and tracking of sprint deliverables.
• Cross-Functional Execution: Drive high-visibility, company-level strategic initiatives across the organization, aligning product, security, and infrastructure teams to push projects across the finish line.
• Dependency & Constraint Navigation: Masterfully manage complex cross-team dependencies, mitigating timeline shifts and engineering bandwidth constraints without sacrificing quality.
• Customer & Stakeholder Diplomacy: Act as a key technical touchpoint for stakeholders and customers, managing expectations transparently when requirements, timelines, or scopes wiggle.
• Next-Gen AI Workflows: Champion and scale our transition into a purely Claude Code-based development workflow, driving team adoption of AI-native engineering for rapid feature development, refactoring, and code comprehension.
• AI-Driven Automation: Architect and implement automated pipelines using Claude Code for autonomous testing, continuous maintenance, code review assists, and boilerplate generation to significantly boost team velocity.
• Architecture & Design: Guide the design of multitenant, cloud-native data processing microservices for high resiliency and performance.
• Hands-on Engagement: Stay close to the metal by reviewing code developed by the team and jumping in with hands-on coding when necessary to unblock milestones. People Development: Conduct performance reviews, provide routine coaching, and set individual expectations that balance personal career ambition with organizational goals.

What You Will Bring With You

• 10+ years of software engineering experience, with 4+ years of experience directly managing or leading software engineering teams in distributed system environments.
• Cross-Functional Track Record: Proven experience leading initiatives that span multiple departments, with a knack for unblocking bottlenecks and driving execution across matrixed organizations.
• Rigor under Constraints: Exceptional project management and scoping skills; ability to maintain delivery rigor despite shifting variables, resource constraints, and competing corporate priorities.
• Stakeholder Communication: Experience communicating updates and resolutions clearly, with the ability to navigate sensitive customer commitments and setting realistic, data-backed expectations.
• AI-Native Engineering: Experience pioneering AI-assisted engineering, specifically utilizing Claude Code (or similar LLM-driven command-line interfaces/agents) to automate development, debugging, and operational workflows.
• DevOps & Delivery: Proven track record of defining modern development best practices, with a heavy focus on advanced DevOps, continuous production delivery, and automated CI/CD pipelines.
• Technical Domain Expertise: Solid understanding of designing scalable, high-performance, event-driven, and streaming data-processing microservices. Experience building high-availability, fault-tolerant platforms and reusable cloud components. Hands-on experience with at least one public cloud environment (e.g., AWS, GCP, Azure) and containerized environments using Kubernetes and cloud native technologies. High proficiency in software development using one or more core languages (e.g., Golang, Java, .NET, C#). Industry Context: Experience or strong interest in cloud-native cybersecurity, specifically Cloud Native Application Protection Platforms (CNAPP).
• Experience building and leading cross functional teams at major cloud providers such as AWS, GCP is a major plus.
• You will spend less time on organizational overhead and more time actively leading forward deployed engineering teams, unblocking cross-functional dependencies, driving delivery rigor, and personally spearheading the squad's shift into Claude Code AI workflows.

What We Look For

• An inspiring engineering leader who is passionate about solving problems in complex distributed systems.
• An execution mindset that brings the structure and discipline required to drive initiatives to completion.
• Someone who can effectively balance internal team health and velocity with demanding external delivery milestones and customer expectations.
• An AI-forward thinker eager to push the boundaries of how software is built and maintained using generative AI tools.
• Someone with experience defining tasks, seeking feedback, and continuously improving their work. High ownership of deliverable quality, operational stability, and timelines.
• A collaborative mindset: someone who prioritizes the team and fosters a culture of trust, mutual respect, and shared success.

When You Join Sysdig, You Can Expect

• Extra days off to prioritize your well-being
• 401(k) Retirement Savings Plan with a 3% company match
• Maternity and Parental Leave
• Mental health support for you and your family through the Modern Health app
• Full health benefits package for you and your family

The U.S. annual salary range for this full-time position is between 175,000 and 219,000 USD/year. Actual offers may be higher or lower than this range based on a variety of factors, including your work location, job-related experience and education.

We would love for you to join us! Please reach out even if your experience doesn't perfectly match the job description. We can always explore other options after starting the conversation. Your background and passion will set you apart, especially if your career path is different.

Sysdig values a diverse workplace and encourages women, people of color, LGBTQIA+ individuals, people with disabilities, members of ethnic minorities, foreign-born residents, and veterans to apply. Sysdig is an equal-opportunity employer. Sysdig does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, national origin, age, disability, genetic information, sexual orientation, gender identity, or any other legally protected status.