Head of Security Engineering (DevSecOps & CISO)

Head of Security Engineering (DevSecOps & CISO)

ABOUT SMARKETS

Smarkets is a prediction market exchange for sports and political trading, having handled over $50 billion in volume since 2010. We're upending sports betting with the fairest prices, the best technology, and a superior customer experience — powered by attracting great people and building a high-performance environment where they thrive. We're looking for an atypical candidate with strong regulated-business experience to support our growing CFTC business.

THE ROLE

This is our inaugural security hire, working alongside Infrastructure to protect the distributed, real-time systems behind our trading engine. You'll lead our information security programme across our core products and our DCM/DCO entities — a founding build, standing up security engineering from the ground up through go-live and maturing it as we scale. Reporting directly to senior leadership and the Board, you'll own security posture updates and ensure our risk management and incident response frameworks exceed regulatory and operational standards.

ABOUT YOU

• Security expert with hands-on experience building security engineering/DevSecOps capabilities in a cloud-native, high-growth environment — ideally financial services or exchange infrastructure

• Excellent communication skills for executive, board, and regulatory audiences

• Familiarity with CFTC system safeguards expectations, including 17 C.F.R. § 38.1051 and § 39.18 or similar regulatory requirements

• Strong grasp of application security principles (OWASP Top 10, NIST) and secure SDLC practices

• Proficiency with CI/CD tooling (GitHub Actions, GitLab CI, Jenkins, Azure DevOps, CircleCI) and security tools (Snyk, Aqua, Trivy, Checkov, Twistlock, Clair)

• Hands-on expertise securing AWS/Azure/GCP, Kubernetes, containers, and IaC

• Proficiency in Python, Bash, Go, or similar

RESPONSIBILITIES

• First dedicated security engineering hire, working from within Infrastructure and Engineering teams to establish and evolve Smarkets' security capabilities

• Own regulatory/industry engagement (including CFTC), reflecting external expectations in internal practic