Deputy Chief Information Security Officer

Who we are: We are a leader in fraud prevention and AML compliance. Our platform uses device intelligence, behavior biometrics, machine learning, and AI to stop fraud before it happens. Today, over 300 banks, retailers, and fintechs worldwide use Sardine to stop identity fraud, payment fraud, account takeovers, and social engineering scams. We have raised $145M from world-class investors, including Andreessen Horowitz, Activant, Visa, Experian, FIS, and Google Ventures. Our culture: - We have hubs in the Bay Area, NYC, Austin, Toronto, and São Paulo. However, we maintain a remote-first work culture. #WorkFromAnywhere - We hire talented, self-motivated individuals with extreme ownership and high growth orientation. - We value performance and not hours worked. We believe you shouldn't have to miss your family dinner, your kid's school play, friends get-together, or doctor's appointments for the sake of adhering to an arbitrary work schedule. Location: Remote, United States Travel: Approximately once every 1–2 months, primarily in North America, with some potential international travel ABOUT THE ROLE Sardine is hiring a Deputy Chief Information Security Officer to partner closely with our CISO and help scale our security program as we grow. This is a senior, high-impact role for a security leader who can operate across multiple areas, including application security, GRC, security operations, cloud and SaaS security, corporate IT, customer trust, and overall security strategy. You’ll serve as a trusted partner to the CISO, help identify and prioritize the highest-risk areas, and represent Sardine’s security program with internal teams, customers, prospects, auditors, and industry stakeholders. We’re looking for someone who is broad, pragmatic, technically fluent, and comfortable in customer-facing settings. The right person can balance strong security judgment with the pace and trade-offs of a fast-moving startup. WHAT YOU’LL DO - Partner with the CISO on Sardine’s overall security strategy, roadmap, priorities, and execution - Help identify, prioritize, and address the highest-risk areas across the business - Support security reporting, executive updates, budgeting, vendor evaluation, and planning - Partner on key compliance initiatives, including PCI, SOC 2, ISO 27001, DORA, and future FedRAMP readiness - Support incident response and act as a deputy incident lead when needed - Work closely with Engineering on application security, secure SDLC, vulnerability management, threat modeling, and remediation - Assess and improve security across cloud infrastructure, SaaS tools, IAM, endpoint management, and corporate IT systems - Bring strong AppSec fluency, including understanding how code moves from design through production, CI/CD, testing, SAST/DAST, dependency scanning, and secrets management - Partner with Product and Engineering on security considerations for AI/ML systems, bot mitigation, and abuse prevention - Support customer-facing security conversations, RFPs, due diligence, security reviews, and executive briefings - Help build trust with enterprise customers by translating technical security concepts into clear business language - Partner cross-functionally with Legal, Sales, Engineering, Product, People, and IT - Champion a pragmatic security culture that enables the business while managing risk WHAT WE’RE LOOKING FOR - 10–15+ years of cybersecurity experience, including 3+ years in a senior leadership or director-level role - Broad security background across multiple domains, not a single-specialty profile - Strong application security experience and ability to assess technical risk without needing to be hands-on coding daily - Experience operating in a startup, scale-up, or similarly resource-constrained environment where prioritization and pragmatism are critical - Ability to evaluate risk, stack-rank priorities, and focus on the highest-impact security work - Strong working knowledge of compliance frameworks such as SOC 2, PCI DSS, ISO 27001, GDPR, CCPA, DORA, and ideally FedRAMP - Experience participating in or leading security incidents - Strong cloud, SaaS security, IAM, endpoint security, and zero-trust fundamentals - Familiarity with AI-assisted workflows and emerging AI/ML security risks - Customer-facing communication skills, with the ability to support sales, security reviews, and executive-level customer conversations - A collaborative, business-enabling approach to security — someone who helps teams find safe paths forward rather than defaulting to “no” - Strong leadership presence and ability to build trust with security, engineering, executive, and go-to-market teams - Experience in fintech, payments, security, bot mitigation, or regulated industries is a plus, but not required - Must be based in the United States and authorized to work in the US without sponsorship Benefits we offer: - Generous compensation in cash and equity - Early exercise for all options, including pre-vested - Work from anywhere: Remote-first Culture - Flexible paid time off and Year-end break - Health insurance, dental, and vision coverage for employees and dependents - US and Canada specific - 4% matching in 401k / RRSP - US and Canada specific - MacBook Pro delivered to your door - One-time stipend to set up a home office — desk, chair, screen, etc. - Monthly meal stipend - Monthly social meet-up stipend - Annual health and wellness stipend - Annual Learning stipend Join a fast-growing company with world-class professionals from around the world. If you are seeking a meaningful career, you found the right place, and we would love to hear from you. To learn more about how we process your personal information and your rights in regards to your personal information as an applicant and Sardine employee, please visit our Applicant and Worker Privacy Notice https://www.sardine.ai/applicant-and-worker-privacy-notice.