Director of Security Operations

About Backblaze Backblaze is the object storage leader in the open cloud movement, fueling customer success with cloud storage built purposefully to unlock budgets, unburden administrators, and unleash innovators. Together with our partners, we’re helping customers break free from the restrictive, overpriced legacy solutions that hold them back, and blaze forward with the full power of the open cloud in their hands. Founded in 2007, we scaled the business with less than $3 million in outside funding until 2021, when we did a traditional IPO on the Nasdaq stock exchange. Today, Backblaze generates over $100m in revenue and is the leading specialized storage cloud - managing over three billion gigabytes of data storage for 500K+ customers in 175+ countries, including businesses, developers, IT professionals, and individuals. But while there is a lot to celebrate in our past, there is almost as much opportunity ahead of us. Backblaze is seeking a highly analytical, systems-oriented Director of Security Operations to drive the planning, forecasting, deployment, and optimization of hardware infrastructure across our global cloud storage platform. Role Overview The Director of Security Operations leads the organization's day-to-day cybersecurity operations across traditional and AI-enabled environments. Reporting to the CISO, the Director leads Security Operations while partnering closely with the Director of Security Architecture & Engineering. This is a hands-on technical leadership role requiring experience implementing and operating security controls as well as leading teams, incidents, and security programs. Key Responsibilities • Lead security monitoring, incident response, threat hunting, security analytics, vulnerability management, adversary emulation, identity security, and operational resilience. • Establish operational priorities, service objectives, metrics, playbooks, and processes based on organizational risk and business needs. • Serve as incident commander for significant cybersecurity events and ensure lessons learned drive improvements to controls and operations. • Drive responsible adoption of AI-assisted detection, investigation, vulnerability analysis, threat hunting, and response capabilities. • Ensure effective security monitoring and response for AI applications, autonomous agents, workloads, and non-human identities. • Use automation to reduce manual work and compress detection, analysis, containment, and remediation timelines. • Partner with Security Architecture & Engineering to ensure controls are effectively designed, implemented, operationalized, monitored, and validated. • Develop security talent and provide the CISO with clear reporting on incidents, exposure, operational performance, risk, and program maturity. Qualifications • Experience leading Security Operations, Incident Response, Detection Engineering, Vulnerability Management, IAM, or related cybersecurity functions. • Demonstrated hands-on experience implementing and operating security controls across cloud, infrastructure, applications, identity, endpoints, and networks. • Strong technical understanding of security analytics, detection engineering, exposure management, adversary emulation, and identity security. • Experience leading significant cybersecurity incidents and cross-functional response activities. • Experience implementing security automation and AI-assisted operational capabilities. • Strong leadership, mentoring, communication, and executive presentation skills. • Experience in cloud-native or large-scale distributed environments and familiarity with modern cybersecurity and AI-risk frameworks is preferred. Backblaze Perks: • Healthcare for family, including dental and vision • Competitive compensation and 401K • RSU grants for full-time employees • ESPP program • Flexible vacation policy • Maternity & paternity leave • MacBook Pro to use for work plus a generous stipend to personalize your workstation • Childcare bonus (human children only) • Fertility treatment and support • Learning & development program • Commuter benefits • Culture that supports a healthy work-life balance To provide greater transparency to candidates, we share base pay ranges for all US-based job postings regardless of state. We set standard base pay ranges for all roles based on function, level, and country location, benchmarked against similar-stage growth companies. Final offer amounts are determined by multiple factors, including candidate location, skills, depth of work experience, and relevant licenses/credentials, and may vary from the amounts listed below. The base pay range for this position is $205,000 - $230,000 At Backblaze, we value being fair and good to our customers, partners, and employees. That’s why diversity, equity, and inclusion are at the core of our values. We are committed to fostering a workforce where all employees feel a sense of belonging regardless of race, ethnicity, nationality, gender, sexual orientation, age, religion, socio-economic status, ability, veteran status, and education. We believe that our dedication to cultivating a diverse workspace not only allows us to better serve our customers in over 175 countries, but further reinforces our commitment to doing the right thing. We are proud to be an Equal Opportunity Employer. To understand more about the data we collect and process as part of your application, please view our Backblaze Employee Privacy Notice.