Sr. Distinguished Engineer - Enterprise Security

At Early Warning, we've powered and protected the U.S. financial system for over thirty years with cutting-edge solutions like Zelle , Paze , and so much more. As a trusted name in payments, we partner with thousands of institutions to increase access to financial services and protect transactions for hundreds of millions of consumers and small businesses.

Positions located in Scottsdale, San Francisco, Chicago, or New York follow a hybrid work model to allow for a more collaborative working environment.

Candidates responding to this posting must independently possess the eligibility to work in the United States, for any employer, at the date of hire. This position is ineligible for employment Visa sponsorship.

Overall Purpose
The Sr. Distinguished Engineer - Enterprise Security is a strategic individual contributor responsible for defining technical direction and solving the organization's most complex security engineering challenges. This role establishes enterprise security architecture and engineering standards, develops roadmaps for next-generation capabilities, and leads the design and implementation of secure, scalable, reliable, and resilient solutions across organizational boundaries.

Serving as both a visionary architect and hands-on technical leader, this position partners with Security, Technology, Architecture, Product, Risk, and business leaders to translate enterprise objectives into practical
technical solutions. The Sr. Distinguished Engineer influences critical decisions, resolves complex technical issues, and advances automation, engineering effectiveness, and operational resilience while balancing
business value, security risk, user experience, and financial impact.

Essential Functions

• Define and advance the enterprise technical strategy, architecture, and engineering roadmap for critical security capabilities.
• Lead the design, implementation, and measurement of strategic security engineering and innovation initiatives, including achievement of expected business, operational, and risk-reduction outcomes.
• Provide enterprise-level architectural and design oversight, partnering with key technical resources to deliver practical solutions on time and within established financial and operational constraints.
• Serve as the final technical escalation point for highly complex security architecture, engineering, implementation, and operational decisions.
• Design and implement solutions that improve security engineering effectiveness and efficiency, including workflows, continuous integration and delivery, Infrastructure as Code, orchestration, configuration management, and other forms of automation.
• Establish technical patterns, engineering standards, governance practices, and operating models that enable secure, scalable, reliable, and resilient enterprise solutions.
• Provide expert technical and strategic oversight for major Security initiatives and implementations; proactively identify cross-functional dependencies, resolve architectural conflicts, and guide decisions that minimize operational, security, and financial risk.
• Develop practical solutions for complex or emerging challenges while maintaining alignment with enterprise objectives and balancing business, security, operational, and financial considerations.
• Lead the diagnosis of complex technical issues and guide or perform root-cause analysis, mitigation planning, and corrective action.
• Assess technical and business risk and recommend, design, or implement manual and automated controls based on defined use cases and expected value.
• Provide technical leadership for disaster recovery, business continuity, high availability, and recovery capabilities associated with enterprise security solutions.
• Mentor senior technical staff and engineering teams, elevate technical standards, and foster a culture of innovation, accountability, engineering excellence, and continuous improvement.
• Remain current on relevant technologies, threats, industry practices, and architectural trends and evaluate their applicability to the organization's security strategy and roadmap.
• Collaborate across the organization to investigate security-related issues, address systemic root causes, and deliver sustainable enterprise solutions.
• Support the company's commitment to risk management and to protecting the integrity and confidentiality of systems and data.
• Perform other related duties as assigned.

Minimum Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, Information Technology, Information Systems, or a related field, or equivalent professional experience.
• Typically has 15 years of experience or demonstrated portfolio consistent with experience required of the role.
• Demonstrated experience providing technical leadership for large-scale, complex, enterprise technology or security initiatives.
• Expert knowledge of server and endpoint operating systems, system interfaces, and application programming interfaces.
• Expert knowledge of networking protocols, communication flows, and enterprise network architecture.
• Expert experience architecting, engineering, or administering enterprise solutions, including solutions designed for high availability, resiliency, and recovery.
• Expert knowledge of interpreted, compiled, and lower-level programming languages, such as Python, Java, C, C++, Perl, or assembly architecture.
• Expert experience developing practical solutions across on-premises and cloud environments.
• Demonstrated experience with continuous integration, continuous delivery and deployment, Infrastructure as Code, automated testing, orchestration, configuration management, and security automation.
• Demonstrated ability to assess highly complex problems from technical, business, security, and operational perspectives; evaluate the feasibility of potential approaches; and determine an effective course of action.
• Demonstrated ability to resolve complex architectural debates, influence technical direction, and align stakeholders with differing priorities and perspectives.
• Ability to communicate complex technical concepts clearly to technical teams, business partners, executive leaders, and other stakeholders.
• Ability to operate independently or collaboratively and serve as a trusted advisor and enterprise technical leader for the Security organization.
• Experience working in agile delivery environments and partnering with engineering and automation teams.
• Experience defining or leading disaster recovery and business continuity capabilities.
• Experience with software development lifecycle practices and IT service management principles.
• Ability to satisfy applicable background-screening requirements.

Preferred Qualifications

• Master's degree in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, Information Security, or a related field, or equivalent professional experience.
• Experience in the financial services, payments, or other highly regulated industry.
• Experience working for an enterprise hardware, software, cloud, or internet technology organization.
• Experience performing architecture, engineering, and operations responsibilities across the technology lifecycle.
• Experience influencing enterprise technology strategy, industry practices, technical standards, or external technical communities.

Physical Requirements

Working conditions consist of a normal office environment. Work is primarily sedentary and requires extensive use of a computer and involves sitting for periods of approximately four hours. Work may require occasional standing, walking, kneeling and reaching. Must be able to lift 10 pounds occasionally and/or negligible amount of force frequently. Requires visual acuity and dexterity to view, prepare, and manipulate documents and office equipment including personal computers. Requires the ability to communicate with internal and/or external customers.

Employee must be able to perform essential functions and physical requirements of position with or without reasonable accommodation.

Candidates responding to this posting must independently possess the eligibility to work in the United States at the date of hire.

The base pay scale for this position in:
Phoenix, AZ/ Chicago, IL in USD per year is: $248,000 - $330,000.

Remote in USD per year is: $248,000 - $330,000.
Additionally, candidates are eligible for a discretionary incentive plan and benefits.

This pay scale is subject to change and is not necessarily reflective of actual compensation that may be earned, nor a promise of any specific pay for any specific candidate, which is always dependent on legitimate factors considered at the time of job offer. Early Warning Services takes into consideration a variety of factors when determining a competitive salary offer, including, but not limited to, the job scope, market rates and geographic location of a position, candidate's education, experience, training, and specialized skills or certification(s) in relation to the job requirements and compared with internal equity (peers). The business actively supports and reviews wage equity to ensure that pay decisions are not based on gender, race, national origin, or any other protected classes.

Some of the Ways We Prioritize Your Health and Happiness

• Healthcare Coverage -Competitive medical (PPO/HDHP), dental, and vision plans as well as company contributions to your Health Savings Account (HSA) or pre-tax savings through flexible spending accounts (FSA) for commuting, health & dependent care expenses.
• 401(k) Retirement Plan -Featuring a 100% Company Safe Harbor Match on your first 6% deferral immediately upon eligibility.
• Paid Time Off - Flexible Time Off for Exempt (salaried) employees, as well as generous PTO for Non-Exempt (hourly) employees, plus 11 paid company holidays and a paid volunteer day.
• 12 weeks of Paid Parental Leave
• Maven Family Planning - provides support through your Parenting journey including egg freezing, fertility, adoption, surrogacy, pregnancy, postpartum, early pediatrics, and returning to work.

And SO much more! We continue to enhance our program, so be sure to check our Benefits page here for the latest. Our team can share more during the interview process!

Early Warning Services, LLC ("Early Warning") considers for employment, hires, retains and promotes qualified candidates on the basis of ability, potential, and valid qualifications without regard to race, religious creed, religion, color, sex, sexual orientation, genetic information, gender, gender identity, gender expression, age, national origin, ancestry, citizenship, protected veteran or disability status or any factor prohibited by law, and as such affirms in policy and practice to support and promote equal employment opportunity and affirmative action, in accordance with all applicable federal, state, and municipal laws. The company also prohibits discrimination on other bases such as medical condition, marital status or any other factor that is irrelevant to the performance of our employees.

Early Warning Services LLC is a proud participant in E-Verify, a federal program to help ensure a legal and authorized workforce. As part of our hiring process, we electronically verify the employment eligibility of all new hires through E-Verify. For more information on your rights and responsibilities under E-Verify please visit Home | E-Verify .