Director of Vulnerability and Exploits

RESPONSIBILITIES Lead and grow a team of vulnerability and exploit specialists across both vulnerability management and exploit research, establishing clear ownership, technical standards, research direction, and development paths. Own the end-to-end vulnerability management program across full infrastructure footprint: asset coverage, continuous assessment, triage, risk-based prioritization, remediation tracking, and SLA enforcement. Direct an exploit research function that goes beyond cataloging CVEs: reverse-engineer exploits and proof-of-concept code to understand true exploitability, build PoCs against the firm\'s own systems, and model adversarial scenarios relevant to HPC and AI environments. Innovate how the program measures risk. Move beyond raw CVSS to context-aware models that account for exploitability (EPSS, KEV, weaponization signals), reachability, blast radius, and impact to production workloads, and validate those models against real findings. Develop new approaches to prioritizing maintenance and remediation, framing patch and mitigation decisions around demonstrated exploitability and operational impact so engineering teams spend effort where it measurably reduces risk. Build the research capability to understand vulnerability and exploit impact to production: how a given class of flaw behaves in specific stack, what compensating controls actually hold, and where standard guidance does not fit a bare-metal HPC environment. Partner closely with Infrastructure, Platform Engineering, and Network teams to drive effective remediation and embed secure-by-default practices, giving engineers clear, well-contextualized, and actionable guidance. Drive tooling strategy and investment for the function, evaluating and deploying vulnerability assessment, management, and exploit research platforms appropriate to scale, with a bias toward depth and customization over off-the-shelf reporting. Develop and maintain program metrics, dashboards, and reporting cadences that give the VP of Security Operations clear visibility into exposure, remediation velocity, exploitability-weighted risk, and program maturity. Stay ahead of the evolving vulnerability and exploit landscape, particularly across GPU clusters, HPC interconnects, firmware and BMC/DRAC, AI workloads, and the CI/CD and supply chain, and fold emerging threats into research and program priorities. Collaborate with the Threat Intelligence, Incident Response, and Offensive Security teams so that vulnerability and exploit findings inform detection, response, and adversary modeling across the security organization. Represent the Vulnerability and Exploits function in cross-functional security reviews, risk forums, and leadership briefings, communicating program status and risk posture with clarity and precision. REQUIREMENTS 8+ years of experience in vulnerability research, offensive security, or exploit development, with at least 3 years in a people management or team leadership role. Deep, hands-on technical expertise in vulnerability analysis and exploit research: reverse engineering, proof-of-concept development, and understanding root cause and exploitability rather than consuming scanner output. Strong command of vulnerability management at scale, including enterprise assessment platforms, CVSS and EPSS, KEV, and risk-based prioritization methodologies, with the judgment to know where those standards fall short and improve on them. Demonstrated ability to innovate: developing new risk-measurement models, prioritization frameworks, or research methods, not just operating an existing program. Experience securing large-scale infrastructure environments; familiarity with the vulnerability landscape of HPC, GPU clusters, high-speed interconnects, firmware, or AI workloads is a strong advantage. Proven ability to build and lead high-performing technical teams, including hiring, mentoring, and developing practitioners across a range of seniority levels. Strong cross-functional collaboration skills, with a track record of working with infrastructure and engineering teams to drive remediation outcomes and embed secure-by-default practices. Experience defining and operating program metrics, SLAs, and executive reporting, with the ability to communicate risk posture clearly to technical and non-technical stakeholders. Familiarity with vulnerability disclosure standards, the CVE process, and coordinated disclosure practices, and the ability to navigate them responsibly. Analytical, structured, and inventive, able to run a broad program across many asset classes while retaining the technical depth to engage meaningfully with complex exploit research. Bachelor’s degree in Engineering, Computer Science, or a related field, or equivalent experience #J-18808-Ljbffr Career Techniques