Application Security Lead

Our Purpose

We work to connect and power an inclusive, digital economy that benefits everyone, everywhere by making transactions safe, simple, smart and accessible. Using secure data and networks, partnerships and passion, our innovations and solutions help individuals, financial institutions, governments and businesses realize their greatest potential. Our decency quotient, or DQ, drives our culture and everything we do inside and outside of our company. We cultivate a culture of inclusion for all employees that respects their individual strengths, views, and experiences. We believe that our differences enable us to be a better team – one that makes better decisions, drives innovation and delivers better business results.

Title and Summary

Application Security Lead

Overview
This is an exciting opportunity to be part of an expanding Vulnerability Management function at Vocalink Limited, a company that enables the payments of 90% of salaries, 70% of utility bills, most ATM transactions and every cheque cleared in the UK.

The successful candidate will become part of a high functioning and expanding team, dedicated to delivering a robust, secure and resilient service to 60+million citizens every day with transactional volume of 11 billion/year and total annual transactional value in excess of GBP6 Trillion.

As the Manager, Application Security Lead at Vocalink Limited, you will play a crucial role in enhancing our application security assurance by leading initiatives to enable secure coding practices within our development teams. You will be responsible for designing, implementing, and managing a comprehensive program to embed security into the software development lifecycle. This role requires a deep understanding of application security principles, strong leadership skills, and the ability to collaborate effectively with cross-functional teams.

Your leadership will play a pivotal role in fortifying our cybersecurity posture, ensuring the protection of sensitive financial data, and maintaining the trust of our clients and stakeholders.

Role
In this role, you will:
• Develop and implement strategies for integrating security assurance into the software development process
• Establish and execute on forward looking application security strategies that enables proactive secure application development
• Collaborate with development teams in conducting security reviews, threat modeling, and code analysis to identify and mitigate security vulnerabilities.
• Provide guidance and training to developers on secure coding practices, security best practices, and common vulnerabilities.
• Advise on the development and maintenance of security standards, policies, and guidelines for application development.
• Stay updated on emerging threats, vulnerabilities, and industry trends in application security, and ensure that security measures are continuously improved and updated.
• Collaborate during regular security assessments and penetration testing of applications to help resolver groups address security weaknesses.
• Serve as a subject matter expert on application security, providing guidance and recommendations to stakeholders across the organization.
• Work closely with the broader security team to align application security efforts with overall security objectives and initiatives.
• Participate in incident response activities, including investigating and responding to security incidents and breaches related to applications.

All About You
• Proven experience in application security, including hands-on experience with secure coding practices, code review, and vulnerability assessment tools.
• Strong understanding of software development methodologies, programming languages, and web technologies.
• Experience leading or managing a team of security professionals.
• Excellent communication skills, with the ability to effectively communicate technical concepts to non-technical stakeholders.
• Strong analytical and problem-solving skills, with the ability to think critically and creatively to identify and mitigate security risks.
• Ability to work independently and collaboratively in a fast-paced environment.
• Experience initiating and managing improvement in areas of security by leveraging process metrics.
• Strong understanding of the payments industry regulatory landscape and compliance requirements.
• Ability to articulate themselves clearly and concisely to a broad range of senior and junior stakeholders, acting as a bridge as well as guide for the implementation of new capabilities.
• Excellent communication and leadership skills with the ability to collaborate effectively across departments.
• Ability to motivate, inspire and lead people effectively.
• Team player – leads by example.
• Strategic thinker – able to develop and communicate direction.
• Commercially aware.
• Has a bias to action.

Corporate Security Responsibility

All activities involving access to Mastercard assets, information, and networks comes with an inherent risk to the organization and, therefore, it is expected that every person working for, or on behalf of, Mastercard is responsible for information security and must:

• Abide by Mastercard’s security policies and practices;

• Ensure the confidentiality and integrity of the information being accessed;

• Report any suspected information security violation or breach, and

• Complete all periodic mandatory security trainings in accordance with Mastercard’s guidelines.