We're transforming the grocery industryAt Instacart, we invite the world to share love through food because we believe everyone should have access to the food they love and more time to enjoy it together. Where others see a simple need for grocery delivery, we see exciting complexity and endless opportunity to serve the varied needs of our community. We work to deliver an essential service that customers rely on to get their groceries and household goods, while also offering safe and flexible earnings opportunities to Instacart Personal Shoppers.
Instacart has become a lifeline for millions of people, and we’re building the team to help push our shopping cart forward. If you’re ready to do the best work of your life, come join our table.
Instacart is a Flex First team There’s no one-size fits all approach to how we do our best work. Our employees have the flexibility to choose where they do their best work—whether it’s from home, an office, or your favorite coffee shop—while staying connected and building community through regular in-person events. Learn more about our flexible approach to where we work.
OverviewThe Security Engineering organization at Instacart is responsible for protecting the security and privacy of Instacart’s products, data, and users. With the right mix of engineering rigor, thoughtful tooling, and cross-functional partnership, we can meaningfully elevate our security posture while still moving quickly.
We are seeking a Head of Product Security to lead and scale our product security programs across Instacart’s consumer, shopper, retailer, and enterprise product lines. This leader will drive the long-term vision for how product security supports our business, guiding multiple teams across offensive security, secure architecture, threat modeling, and developer enablement. You will work closely with senior engineering and product leaders to embed security into fast-paced development cycles and ensure Instacart continues to ship secure, reliable products at scale. This is a high-impact role in a dynamic, rapidly evolving environment - ideal for a leader who thrives in ambiguity, enjoys building teams and systems from the ground up, and is energized by complex technical and organizational challenges.
About the Job- Define and lead Instacart’s long-term product security strategy, driving measurable improvements across all product surfaces.
- Lead multiple product security teams, setting clear direction across offensive security, secure design, architecture reviews, and security tooling.
- Partner with engineering and product orgs to integrate security seamlessly into the SDLC, enabling high-velocity development without compromising security.
- Build scalable, durable capabilities by operationalizing security tooling, frameworks, and workflows used across engineering teams.
- Guide teams through complex offensive security engagements to uncover security defects, anti-patterns, and emerging risks, driving mitigation plans across the organization.
- Design and implement security controls for cloud environments (AWS, GCP, etc.)
- Build a security-first culture across engineering and operations teams
About YouMinimum Qualifications- Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, Math, or equivalent industry experience.
- 10+ years of progressive experience in Security Engineering, Product Security, and Offensive Security/Penetration Testing, ideally in a high-scale, dynamic environment.
- 5+ years leading and scaling multi-disciplinary security teams, including managing managers, responsible for large-scale production systems in high-stakes domains.
- Deep expertise in driving secure architecture, advanced threat modeling, and application of security research to proactively identify and mitigate emerging risks at scale in mission-critical systems.
- Strong understanding of emerging threats, including AI/ML related attacks, to drive measurable risk reduction across the organization, with a proven ability to manage crises and high-impact security events.
- Extensive experience securing cloud infrastructure (AWS, Azure, or GCP)
- Experience with DevSecOps, CI/CD security integration, and automation
- Knowledge of container security (Docker, Kubernetes) and microservices architectures
- Experience with infrastructure-as-code (Terraform, CloudFormation, Ansible)
- Strong ability to make data-driven decisions and prioritize initiatives that meaningfully improve key security metrics.
- Excellent communication skills with technical and non-technical stakeholders
Preferred Qualifications- Familiarity with compliance or privacy frameworks such as SOC 2, GDPR, PCI, or HIPAA.
- AI Red Teaming and Responsible AI skills
Instacart provides highly market-competitive compensation and benefits in each location where our employees work. This role is remote and the base pay range for a successful candidate is dependent on their permanent work location. Please review our Flex First remote work policy here.
Offers may vary based on many factors, such as candidate experience and skills required for the role. Additionally, this role is eligible for a new hire equity grant as well as annual refresh grants. Please read more about our benefits offerings here. For US based candidates, the base pay ranges for a successful candidate are listed below.
CA, NY, CT, NJ
$299,000-$332,000 USD
WA
$287,000-$319,000 USD
OR, DE, ME, MA, MD, NH, RI, VT, DC, PA, VA, CO, TX, IL, HI
$275,000-$305,000 USD
All other states
$248,000-$276,000 USD