VP, Product Security

We are CARIAD, an automotive software development team with the Volkswagen Group. Our mission is to make the automotive experience safer, more sustainable, more comfortable, more digital, and more fun. To achieve that we are building the leading tech stack for the automotive industry and creating a unified software platform for over 10 million new vehicles per year. We’re looking for talented, digital minds like you to help us create code that moves the world. Together with you, we’ll build outstanding digital experiences and products for all Volkswagen Group brands that will transform mobility. Join us as we shape the future of the car and everyone around it. 

Role Summary 

The VP of Product Security will be responsible for reinforcing and strengthening Cariad’s “Product Security is a priority” core value across our software operations, products, and development lifecycles.  Reporting to Cariad’s Chief Software Officer, you will lead the Product Security organization, strategy, and road map necessary for Cariad to achieve short and long-term business goals. 

In this role, you will be responsible for the development, implementation, and oversight of comprehensive product security and software programs, practices, and guidelines to ensure compliance with security and regulations, standards, and best practices. You will build and oversee a high-performance organization that effectively coordinates all product security software efforts and promotes a strong product security culture across the company.  The Product Security organization at Cariad is responsible for protecting the product systems against attacks that can compromise any aspects & guarantees of security of the products. The organization charter encompasses developing security-critical software for vehicle embedded software, platform & backend infrastructure, providing security guidance to software teams through architecture reviews, threat analysis, risk assessment, and development of reference implementations of security and features, all following and extending industry best practices and standards. 

Role Responsibilities  

• In this role you will be responsible for leading the organization working identifying software and hardware protective cybersecurity measures, conducting threat analysis, and researching industry best practices and cyber incidents and performing related activities necessary to define concrete actions around cybersecurity posture for Cariad’s products. 
• You will be leading the advancement of Cariad’s product security function and take it to the next level of maturity which will include taking on other related security functions such as security analytics, Threat Management, and/or managing support and engineering for cybersecurity. 
• Build relationships and collaboration partnerships with the engineering teams to align on cybersecurity capabilities and requirements to protect effectively Cariad’s products. 
• Closely collaborate with engineering, product, and operations integrating product security and measures seamlessly into the product development lifecycle. 
• Improve upon Cariad’s overall product security strategy while leading the continuous improvement of security policies in alignment with industry best practices. 
• Promote a culture of product security first by ensuring that product security requirements are integral to decision-making at all levels of the software organization. 
• Drive product security roadmaps in compliance with existing standards (e.g. EU UNR 155 / 156, ISO 21434, ISO 26262, etc.) with flexibility for future compliance and best practice requirements. 
• Help develop the Product Security Incident Response Steering team to guide the programs growth and provide leadership and directions for significant deviation events that may impact compliance status or present significant business risk. 
• Represent Cariad externally as the spokesperson on product security topics. 
• Take an adversary perspective on how our products can be misused and identify reasonable countermeasures for the next generation of security threats. 
• Work with outside consultants to improve and pressure-test our product security and processes. 

Years of Experience 

•  15+ years of hands-on experience on Product Security.

Required Education 

•  BS in Computer Science or a related field

Desired Education 

• MS/PhD in computer science or a related field

Skills: 

• Experienced developing, implementing, advising, and/or managing product security programs and teams in the Automotive industry. 
• Prior engineering management experience shippi