Staff Backend Engineer, Admin Experience

Get to Know Us

Horizon3 is a fast-growing, remote cybersecurity company dedicated to the mission of enabling organizations to proactively find, fix and verify exploitable attack vectors before criminals exploit them. Our flagship product, the NodeZeroTM platform, delivers production-safe autonomous pentests and other key assessment operations that scale across the largest internal, external, cloud, and hybrid cloud environments. NodeZero has been adopted by organizations of all sizes, from small educational institutions to government agencies and Global 100 enterprises. It is used by IT Ops/SecOps teams, consulting pentesters, and MSSPs and MSPs.

We are a fusion of former U.S. Special Operations cyber operators, startup engineers & operators, and formerly frustrated cybersecurity practitioners. We're committed to helping solve our common security problems: ineffective security tools and false positives, resulting in alert fatigue, blind spots, "checkbox” security culture, cybersecurity skills shortage, and the long lead time and expense of hiring outside consultants. Collectively, we are a team of learn it alls, committed to a culture of respect, collaboration, ownership, and results.

What You’ll Do

As a Staff Backend Engineer on the Admin Experience team, you’ll provide hands-on technical leadership for NodeZero’s account administration capabilities. You’ll shape how services and APIs support user access, parent-child account controls, account settings, and related capabilities such as roles, access controls, and audit logs. You’ll lead complex changes to account and authorization models, helping teams preserve secure tenant boundaries while making administration easier for customers. You’ll remain hands-on in implementation and partner across Product and Engineering to set durable technical direction and improve production readiness.

Responsibilities

• Set technical direction for backend services and APIs supporting user access, account hierarchies, settings, and administration workflows.

• Lead architecture and implementation of cross-cutting work involving authorization, tenant boundaries, and safe evolution of customer account models.

• Remain hands-on in production code while guiding design decisions, technical tradeoffs, and delivery across the team.

• Raise standards for API quality, testing, security, observability, rollout practices, and operational readiness.

• Partner with Product and adjacent teams to align interfaces and keep administration capabilities consistent across NodeZero.

• Mentor and influence engineers through design reviews, code reviews, pairing, and clear technical documentation.

• Help diagnose complex production issues and drive improvements that prevent recurrence.

What You’ll Bring

• Ability to lead through ambiguity, break down broad problems, and align multiple teams around a practical technical direction.

• Strong judgment balancing security, customer experience, scalability, maintainability, and delivery speed.

• Excellent communication and technical-writing skills; able to explain architecture and tradeoffs to varied audiences.

• A collaborative approach to mentoring engineers and improving engineering standards beyond a single project.

• Personal ownership of production quality, operational readiness, and continuous improvement.

Required Education / Experience

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, or a related field, or equivalent practical experience.

• 8+ years of professional software engineering experience, including deep experience building production backend systems.

• Track record of leading technical direction or architecture for complex services, APIs, or platform capabilities.

• Strong experience with distributed or multi-tenant systems, data modeling, SQL, and production reliability.

• Ability to influence technical decisions across teams and communicate architecture and tradeoffs clearly.

• Experience mentoring engineers and improving the quality and consistency of engineering practices.

Required Tech Stack Experience

• Deep experience building backend services in a modern language such as Python, Go, Java, or TypeScript.

• Strong experience with SQL and relational data stores, API design (REST or GraphQL), and cloud-hosted production services.

• Experience with containerized services such as Docker and with testing and operational practices for customer-facing systems.

• Experience with every example technology is not required; demonstrate depth in relevant areas and the ability to guide cross-team choices.

What Sets You Apart?

• Deep experience with RBAC, SSO, account hierarchies, delegated administration, auditability, or identity and access management.

• Experience with PostgreSQL, AWS, Kubernetes, feature flags, and observability tools such as Datadog, Prometheus, or OpenTelemetry.

• Experience in cybersecurity or a customer-facing SaaS platform with complex tenant models.

[Optional] Travel Required

We are a fully remote company, and this job may require up to 5% of travel to be successful.

Compensation and Values

At Horizon3, we believe that our people are our greatest asset, and our compensation philosophy reflects this core value. We are committed to fostering an environment where all employees feel valued, respected, and rewarded for their contributions. Our compensation structure is designed to be fair, competitive, and transparent, ensuring that every team member is recognized and compensated equitably across roles, levels, and locations.

In accordance with various State’s transparency regulations, we provide the following salary range information for this position:

• Base salary range $230,000 - $270,000 annually. The exact salary will be determined based on the selected candidate’s location, qualifications, experience, and relevant skills.

• Additional compensation: All full-time roles are eligible for an equity package in the form of stock options.

Perks of Horizon3

• Inclusive Team: We value diversity and promote an inclusive culture where everyone can thrive.

• Growth Opportunities: Be part of a dynamic and growing team with numerous career development opportunities.

• Innovative Culture: Work in a collaborative environment that encourages creativity and out-of-the-box thinking.

• Hybrid & Remote Work: We embrace a mix of remote and hybrid work models depending on role and location, including our Chicago office, where some roles require regular in-office presence.

• Competitive Compensation: We offer competitive salary, equity and benefits. Our benefits include health, vision & dental insurance for you and your family, a flexible vacation policy, and generous parental leave.

You Belong Here

Horizon3 is not just an equal opportunity employer - we are a community that values diversity, equity, and inclusion as fundamental principles of our culture and success. We are dedicated to fostering a workplace where everyone feels welcome and respected, regardless of race, color, religion, sex, national origin, age, disability, veteran status, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, genetic information, marital status, hair length or any other legally protected status by law.

Our commitment to diversity and inclusion means we strive to attract, develop, and retain a workforce that reflects the varied communities we serve. We believe that diverse perspectives drive innovation and strengthen our ability to create cutting-edge cybersecurity solutions. At Horizon3, every team member is valued and supported in an environment that encourages personal and professional growth.

We welcome candidates from all backgrounds and experiences, and we encourage all qualified individuals to apply. Come be a part of Horizon3, where your unique contributions are recognized, and your potential is limitless.

Other Duties

Please note this job description is not designed to cover or contain a comprehensive listing of activities, duties or responsibilities that are required of the employee. Duties, responsibilities, and activities may change at any time with or without notice.

Application Note

In any materials you submit, you may redact or remove age-identifying information such as age, date of birth, or dates of school attendance or graduation. You will not be penalized for redacting or removing this information.