Role Snapshot
PowerSchool seeks a Director of Security Operations and Architecture to define and execute enterprise security strategy across security operations, incident response, architecture, engineering, identity, and cloud security. The role protects the organization from cyber threats while enabling business objectives in the K-12 education software market.
Job Description
About PowerSchool
At PowerSchool, we power education for students around the world. As the global leader in cloud-based K-12 software, we support the full education ecosystem—from the central office to the classroom to the home. Joining PowerSchool means being part of a mission-driven team that is transforming K-12 education by helping schools operate more effectively and deliver better outcomes for educators, students, and families.
Position Overview
The Director, Security Operations and Architecture is responsible for defining and executing the enterprise security strategy across Security Operations, Incident Response, Security Architecture, Security Engineering, Identity Security, and Cloud Security. This leader oversees the people, processes, and technologies required to prevent, detect, investigate, respond to, and recover from cybersecurity threats while establishing the security architecture, standards, and controls that protect the organization and enable business objectives.
The role drives operational excellence through security monitoring, detection engineering, threat intelligence, automation, cloud security, identity governance, and secure-by-design principles. Working closely with technology, business, product, and security leaders, the Director ensures security risks are proactively managed while delivering measurable improvements in resilience, operational effectiveness, security maturity, and risk reduction.
Responsibilities
Description
Your day-to-day job will consist of:
Security Architecture
- Define and execute the security architecture, engineering, identity security, and cloud security strategy aligned to business objectives and enterprise risk priorities.
- Lead the Security Architecture organization, including Security Engineering, Identity Security, and Cloud Security functions.
- Establish and maintain enterprise security standards, reference architectures, design principles, and technical security guardrails.
- Define and govern enterprise identity and access management strategy, including privileged access, authentication, authorization, and identity governance.
- Establish cloud security architecture standards, cloud guardrails, platform security requirements, and cloud security control frameworks.
- Lead security architecture reviews, threat modeling, and risk assessments for strategic initiatives, cloud platforms, and enterprise systems.
- Drive the design, implementation, and lifecycle management of security controls, security tooling, and automation capabilities.
- Partner with Engineering, IT, Product, and Cloud Operations leaders to ensure security requirements are integrated into technology decisions and delivery processes.
- Oversee vulnerability management, security hardening standards, technical risk remediation, and security control effectiveness.
- Evaluate emerging technologies, threats, and industry practices to inform security strategy and investment decisions.
- Define and track security architecture metrics, operational KPIs, and maturity objectives to measure program effectiveness and drive continuous improvement.
- Build, mentor, and develop managers, architects, and engineers while fostering a culture of technical excellence, accountability, and continuous improvement.
Security Operations
- Define and execute the security operations, incident response, and cyber defense strategy, roadmap, and maturity plan aligned with organizational risk priorities.
- Lead the Security Operations and Incident Response functions, ensuring effective detection, investigation, containment, eradication, and recovery of cybersecurity incidents.
- Direct the operation and continuous improvement of security monitoring, detection engineering, threat hunting, and incident response capabilities.
- Establish and maintain incident response plans, playbooks, escalation procedures, and crisis management processes.
- Drive continuous improvement of detection coverage, incident response effectiveness, automation, and operational efficiency.
- Develop and maintain security operations metrics, KPIs, SLAs, and executive reporting to measure program performance and risk reduction.
- Partner with Security Architecture, Cloud Security, Identity Security, IT, and Engineering teams to improve preventive and detective controls.
- Oversee vulnerability prioritization and operational risk remediation activities in collaboration with technology teams.
- Manage relationships with external security service providers, incident response partners, law enforcement, and cyber insurance stakeholders as required.
- Ensure operational readiness through tabletop exercises, simulations, and continuous training programs.
- Build, mentor, and develop high-performing security operations, incident response, and detection engineering teams.
- Communicate security incidents, emerging threats, operational risks, program performance, and security priorities to executive leadership and key stakeholders.
Qualifications
Minimum Qualifications
- Bachelor’s degree in relevant business or technical discipline is required.
- 10+ years of progressive cybersecurity experience with leadership responsibility across security operations, incident response, security architecture, engineering, or related security programs.
- 5+ years of leadership experience managing security operations teams, SOC functions, incident response teams, security architects, engineers, or security managers.
- Demonstrated experience leading multiple security domains, including security operations, incident response, identity and access management, cloud security, and security engineering.
- Demonstrated experience managing and responding to complex cybersecurity incidents in enterprise environments.
- Deep understanding of enterprise security architecture, security controls, risk management, and secure-by-design principles.
- Strong knowledge of security operations, detection engineering, threat hunting, digital forensics, and incident response practices.
- Experience developing security metrics, operational KPIs, SLAs, and executive-level reporting.
- Experience with public cloud platforms and cloud security architectures.
- Strong understanding of cloud, identity, endpoint, network, and application security concepts.
- Proven ability to lead cross-functional teams during high-severity incidents and crisis situations.
- Excellent communication and stakeholder management skills, including presenting to executive leadership.
Preferred Qualifications
- Relevant certifications such as CISSP, CISM, CRISC, CISA, or equivalent are a plus but not required.
- Experience leading security organizations within SaaS, cloud-native, or highly regulated environments.
- Experience leading a 24x7 SOC, managed detection and response partnership, or global security operations program.
- Experience developing multi-year security transformation or modernization programs.
- Experience with security automation, orchestration, and large-scale incident response process optimization.
- Experience developing threat intelligence, threat hunting, and adversary simulation programs.
- Experience supporting cyber crisis management, breach response, and executive incident communications.
- Knowledge of cloud-native security monitoring and incident response within public cloud environments.
- Experience managing globally distributed security teams and third-party service providers.
- Demonstrated success building high-performing technical teams and developing future security leaders.
- Proven success building, mentoring, and scaling high-performing security operations and incident response teams.
Compensation & Benefits
Compensation & Benefits
Along with our highly market competitive base compensation, PowerSchool offers the following benefits:
Comprehensive Insurance Coverage (including Medical, Dental, Vision, Pharmacy benefits, Life Insurance and AD&D)
Flexible Spending Accounts and Health Savings Accounts
Short-Term Disability and Long-Term Disability
Comprehensive 401(k) plan
Generous Parental Leave
Unrestricted paid time off (known as Discretionary Time Off - DTO)
Wellness Program, including ClassPass & Employee Assistance Program
Tuition Reimbursement
Optional Benefits: Pet Insurance, Identity Theft Protection, Student Debt Repayment Program and Prepaid Legal coverage
EEO Commitment
EEO Commitment
PowerSchool is committed to a diverse and inclusive workplace. PowerSchool is an equal opportunity employer and does not discriminate on the basis of race, national origin, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, protected veteran status, disability, age, or other legally protected status. Our inclusive culture empowers PowerSchoolers to deliver the best results for our customers. We not only celebrate the diversity of our workforce, we celebrate the diverse ways we work. If you have a disability and need an accommodation regarding our recruiting process, please let us know by emailing accommodations@powerschool.com.
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