Head of Detection and Response

Founds and leads Plaid's new Detection and Response team, which protects the company's financial infrastructure by spotting and handling suspicious activity anywhere in the business. The team's remit spans the whole detection and response lifecycle: detection infrastructure, AI-driven triage and response, investigation tooling, Red Teaming and Fraud Operations. The head works closely with the CISO and other engineering leaders.

Building the function from nothing comes first, including its culture and operating standards. The head then runs day-to-day incident response, manages and mentors the analysts and engineers who own detection infrastructure, AI triage and investigation tools, and oversees the red team and fraud operations so the organisation is proactive as well as reactive. The role reports risks and progress to senior leaders including the CISO, CTO and COO, and defines the metrics that show whether the program is working. Much of the change has to come through influence across engineering rather than direct authority.

Plaid wants eight to fourteen years in detection and response or security engineering, enough technical depth to direct work on SIEM, EDR and SOC operations, experience managing security analysts and engineers in an operational or platform setting, and an AI-first approach to security operations. Fintech or payments experience, and a background in fraud investigation or software engineering, are pluses. The role is hybrid from the San Francisco headquarters.