Technical Lead, Platform Security

Block is one company built from many blocks, all united by the same purpose of economic empowerment. The blocks that form our foundational teams - People, Finance, Counsel, Hardware, Information Security, Platform Infrastructure Engineering, and more - provide support and guidance at the corporate level. They work across business groups and around the globe, spanning time zones and disciplines to develop inclusive People policies, forecast finances, give legal counsel, safeguard systems, nurture new initiatives, and more. Every challenge creates possibilities, and we need different perspectives to see them all. Bring yours to Block.
The Role
Platform Security at Block is a critical function focused on fortifying the foundational layers of our infrastructure. It spans three specialized teams: Compute Security, Cloud Security, and Network Security. These teams secure the foundational platform services that power Block's major businesses, ensuring robust, scalable, and resilient infrastructure across all environments.
As Technical Lead, Platform Security, you will provide strategic and hands-on technical leadership across these domains. You'll set architectural direction, identify and mitigate security risks at scale, and work closely with engineering and infrastructure partners to uplift Block's security posture across our rapidly evolving environments. You'll play a key role in aligning teams around a shared security vision, supporting consistency in approach while empowering teams to work independently with clarity and shared understanding. You'll help invent creative, resilient solutions purpose-built for the complexity of our infrastructure.
This is a high-impact leadership role for a deeply technical engineer with strong experience in security, infrastructure, and cross-functional collaboration. The ideal candidate combines deep expertise with sound judgment, adaptability, and a willingness to navigate complex tradeoffs. You'll play a key role in helping us strike the right balance between security and velocity, enabling teams to move fast, safely.
You Will

• Shape Strategy and Architecture: Set the long-term vision and technical strategy for Compute, Cloud, and Network Security. Ensure architecture aligns with industry best practices for security, scalability, and resilience.
• Be a Security Engineering Thought Leader: Act as a go-to expert in areas such as network segmentation, secure CI/CD pipelines, cloud-native controls, and workload isolation. Help teams evaluate tradeoffs and make informed decisions that reflect both security risk and business context.
• Collaborate Across Functions to Build Shared Security Models: Partner with infrastructure, security engineering, and application teams to define secure-by-default patterns and frameworks across all environments. Foster a culture of enablement and shared responsibility.
• Help Design and Support Secure Platforms: Oversee the design and build of secure compute and network platforms that empower developers without compromising security. Champion automation-first approaches to eliminate whole classes of risk.
• Promote Consistency and Scale Through Shared Practices: Define and promote scalable security standards, reusable components, and best practices across Block's diverse ecosystem. Be pragmatic about what to centralize, standardize, or decentralize.
• Partner Across Security and Risk Functions: Collaborate with Detection & Response to inform infrastructure threat detection with platform-level insights. Support Compliance and Governance teams in meeting regulatory and internal requirements, ensuring audit-ready, secure infrastructure.
• Mentor and Elevate Engineering Talent: Provide technical mentorship across teams. Cultivate a culture of ownership, curiosity, and engineering excellence with a security-first, but not security-only, mindset.

You Have

• Technical Leadership in Security Engineering: A proven track record of driving architectural decisions and influencing platform security direction at scale in large, complex environments.
• Expertise Across Domains: Deep experience in at least two of the following: network security (e.g., segmentation, firewalling, transit layer protections), cloud security (e.g., GCP/AWS IAM, service boundaries), or compute security (e.g., secure build systems, hardened Kubernetes).
• Infrastructure and Platform Fluency: Strong understanding of cloud infrastructure (GCP, AWS), container orchestration, identity and access management, and service mesh patterns.
• Modern Security Approach: Familiarity with Zero Trust architectures, principle of least privilege, layered defense strategies, and automation-based security enforcement.
• Exceptional Communication and Influence: Ability to clearly articulate complex technical concepts to engineers, leadership, and cross-functional partners. Able to drive alignment across diverse stakeholders.
• Bias for Action: Track record of rolling up sleeves and leading execution of high-impact initiatives, not just defining strategy, but delivering it.
• A Pragmatic and Customer-Centered Mindset: You aren't a security fundamentalist. You understand that best practice doesn't always translate to best fit at scale. You're comfortable navigating tough tradeoffs, recognizing when to push for ideal security outcomes and when to prioritize business context, velocity, or operational complexity. You focus on building trust and working solutions, not just perfect ones.

We're working to build a more inclusive economy where our customers have equal access to opportunity, and we strive to live by these same values in building our workplace. Block is an equal opportunity employer evaluating all employees and job applicants without regard to identity or any legally protected class. We will consider qualified applicants with arrest or conviction records for employment in accordance with state and local laws and "fair chance" ordinances.
We believe in being fair, and are committed to an inclusive interview experience, including providing reasonable accommodations to disabled applicants throughout the recruitment process. We encourage applicants to share any needed accommodations with their recruiter, who will treat these requests as confidentially as possible. Want to learn more about what we're doing to build a workplace that is fair and square? Check out our I+D page .
While there is no specific deadline to apply for this role, U.S. roles are typically open for an average of 55 days before being filled by a successful candidate. Please refer to the date listed at the top of this job page for when this role was first posted.
Block takes a market-based approach to pay, and pay may vary depending on your location. U.S. locations are categorized into one of four zones based on a cost of labor index for that geographic area. The successful candidate's starting pay will be determined based on job-related skills, experience, qualifications, work location, and market conditions. These ranges may be modified in the future.
To find a location's zone designation, please refer to this resource . If a location of interest is not listed, please speak with a recruiter for additional information.
Zone A:
$263,600 - $395,400 USD
Zone B:
$263,600 - $395,400 USD
Zone C:
$263,600 - $395,400 USD
Zone D:
$263,600 - $395,400 USD
Every benefit we offer is designed with one goal: empowering you to do the best work of your career while building the life you want. Remote work, medical insurance, flexible time off, retirement savings plans, and modern family planning are just some of our offering. Check out our other benefits at Block.
Block, Inc. (NYSE: XYZ) builds technology to increase access to the global economy. Each of our brands unlocks different aspects of the economy for more people. Square makes commerce and financial services accessible to sellers. Cash App is the easy way to spend, send, and store money. Afterpay is transforming the way customers manage their spending over time. TIDAL is a music platform that empowers artists to thrive as entrepreneurs. Bitkey is a simple self-custody wallet built for bitcoin. Proto is a suite of bitcoin mining products and services. Together, we're helping build a financial system that is open to everyone.