Director of Engineering, Security

Company Introduction         We exist to wow our customers. We know we’re doing the right thing when we hear our customers say, “How did we ever live without Coupang?” Born out of an obsession to make shopping, eating, and living easier than ever, we’re collectively disrupting the multi-billion-dollar e-commerce industry from the ground up. We are one of the fastest-growing e-commerce companies that established an unparalleled reputation for being a dominant and reliable force in South Korean commerce.     We are proud to have the best of both worlds — a startup culture with the resources of a large global public company. This fuels us to continue our growth and launch new services at the speed we have been since our inception. We are all entrepreneurs surrounded by opportunities to drive new initiatives and innovations. At our core, we are bold and ambitious people that like to get our hands dirty and make a hands-on impact. At Coupang, you will see yourself, your colleagues, your team, and the company grow every day.     Our mission to build the future of commerce is real. We push the boundaries of what’s possible to solve problems and break traditional tradeoffs. Join Coupang now to create an epic experience in this always-on, high-tech, and hyper-connected world.           Role Overview     

We are looking for a hands-on Director of Engineering with deep technical expertise and a passion for building secure, reliable, and scalable systems. This role combines technical architecture leadership with people and delivery management. You will lead a team of talented senior engineers while staying close to the code and system design. 

 

Your Mission 

Drive the security, quality, and reliability of our core platforms and AI systems while mentoring engineers, scaling engineering excellence, and partnering closely with product and leadership on strategic roadmaps. As our organization increasingly leverages AI, LLMs, and Model Context Protocol (MCP) services, this role will define and enforce secure patterns for AI model training, hosting, and consumption at scale, ensuring innovation without compromising trust. 

 

    What You Will Do    

• Build and grow a high-performing team of senior/staff-level engineers across geographies, fostering autonomy, trust, and accountability. 

• Design and lead the architecture of secure, scalable backend systems using Java (Spring Boot) and AWS cloud-native services. 

• Integrate Generative AI capabilities (embeddings, RAG, LLM APIs) into product workflows responsibly and securely. 

• Define API security patterns and API authorization at scale for microservices and service mesh environments. 

• Lead design and implementation of authentication, authorization, and identity management solutions (SSO, OIDC, RBAC/ABAC, SCIM). 

• Champion cryptography and PKI systems, secure SDLC practices, and compliance frameworks. 

• Partner with leadership to deliver security-driven engineering roadmaps aligned with business priorities. 

      Basic Qualifications    

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science or related technical field. 

• 8+ years in software development and security engineering. 

• Proven experience designing and developing large-scale distributed systems. 

• Expertise in Java, Spring Boot, and AWS architecture/services (EKS, S3, Lambda, RDS, IAM, KMS). 

• Strong knowledge of security architecture, authentication/authorization, cryptography, and PKI systems. 

      Preferred Qualifications      

• Recent hands-on experience (last 3–4 years) building secure, distributed systems at scale, with strong exposure to AI/ML development and hosting.