Lead Security Engineer — Cryptographic Libraries & TLS

Location: Palo Alto, CA, United States

Take on a crucial role where you'll be a key part of a high-performing team building and maintaining foundational cryptographic infrastructure. Make a real impact as you help shape the way secure communications are configured, tested, and deployed across the enterprise at one of the world's largest and most influential companies.

As a Lead Security Engineer at JPMorgan Chase within the CTC Emerging Technologies Security group, you will own and evolve a TLS abstraction layer that provides a unified interface for TLS stack configuration across Java, Python, and Node.js runtimes. You will serve as both a hands-on developer and a subject-matter expert at the intersection of network security protocols and polyglot software engineering. You will be responsible for ensuring that the library remains secure, performant, well-tested, and aligned with evolving TLS standards and enterprise security policy.

 

Job Responsibilities

• Design, implement, debug, and extend the TLS abstraction layer, ensuring consistent TLS configuration and behavior across Java (JSSE/Bouncy Castle), Python (ssl/OpenSSL bindings), and Node.js (built-in TLS/OpenSSL) runtimes.
• Serve as the team's subject-matter expert on TLS 1.2 and 1.3 handshake mechanics, cipher suite negotiation, certificate validation, key exchange algorithms, and session resumption — and translate that expertise into library design decisions.
• Architect clean, well-documented APIs that decouple application-level TLS intent (e.g., minimum protocol version, allowed cipher suites, certificate pinning, mutual TLS) from the platform-specific implementation details of each runtime's TLS stack.
• Build and maintain comprehensive test suites — including unit, integration, interoperability, and protocol-conformance tests — that verify correct TLS behavior across all supported runtimes and configurations. Develop test harnesses that exercise edge cases such as certificate chain validation failures, protocol downgrade scenarios, and cipher suite mismatches.
• Design, maintain, and improve CI/CD pipelines for the library, including automated builds, multi-runtime test matrices, static analysis, dependency scanning, and artifact publishing across all supported language ecosystems (Maven/Gradle, PyPI, npm).
• Triage and resolve complex TLS-related issues reported by consuming applications, including handshake failures, performance regressions, certificate trust-store misconfigurations, and runtime-specific behavioral differences.
• Monitor developments in TLS standards (IETF RFCs), cryptographic library updates (OpenSSL, Bouncy Castle), and runtime release notes to proactively assess impact on the library and plan necessary updates.
• Produce clear integration guides, migration documentation, and configuration references so that consuming teams can adopt and configure the library with minimal friction.
• Work with application teams, platform engineering, and enterprise security policy owners to gather requirements, communicate breaking changes, and align library capabilities with organizational security mandates.
• Contribute to a team culture of diversity, equity, inclusion, and mutual respect.

 

Required Qualifications, Capabilities, and Skills

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, or a related field; 7+ years of software development experience, with at least 3 years focused on security-sensitive or infrastructure-level library development.
• Strong hands-on development skills in at least two of Java, Python, and Node.js/TypeScript, with a willingness and ability to work across all three. Experience with each language's native TLS/cryptographic APIs (e.g., JSSE, Python ssl module, Node.js tls module).
• Deep understanding of TLS 1.2 and 1.3 — including handshake flows, key exchange mechanisms (ECDHE, DHE), certificate authentication (X.509, chain-of-trust, Certificate Verify), cipher suite semantics, ALPN/SNI, and session management. Familiarity with underlying cryptographic primitives (AES-GCM, ChaCha20-Poly1305, RSA, ECDSA, EdDSA, HKDF).
• Demonstrated experience designing, versioning, and maintaining libraries or SDKs consumed by other engineering teams, including thoughtful API surface design, semantic versioning, and backward-compatibility management.
• Proven experience building multi-dimensional test strategies for security-critical software, including protocol-conformance testing, cross-platform interoperability testing, and negative/adversarial test cases.
• Hands-on experience designing and maintaining CI/CD pipelines (e.g., Jenkins, GitHub Actions, or equivalent), including multi-language build matrices, automated security scanning (SAST, dependency vulnerability checks), and artifact publication.
• Strong diagnostic skills for network-level issues — comfortable using tools like Wireshark, OpenSSL CLI (s_client, s_server), keytool, and language-specific debuggers to trace TLS handshake failures and certificate issues.
• Solid understanding of agile development methodologies, including iterative delivery, code review discipline, and application resiliency principles.

 

Preferred Qualifications, Capabilities, and Skills

• Experience with cryptographic library internals such as OpenSSL, Bouncy Castle, or LibreSSL.
• Familiarity with FIPS 140-2/140-3 compliance requirements and their impact on TLS configuration and cryptographic provider selection.
• Experience with mutual TLS (mTLS) at scale, including certificate lifecycle management and automated rotation.
• Knowledge of PKI systems, HSMs, or key management infrastructure.
• Experience with container-based build and test environments (Docker, Kubernetes) and cloud platforms (AWS).
• Familiarity with performance profiling of TLS handshakes and bulk-encryption throughput across runtimes.
• Experience using AI-assisted development tools (e.g., GitHub Copilot, Claude Code ) to accelerate library development and test generation.
• Relevant certifications such as CISSP, CCSP, or vendor-specific security credentials are a plus but not required.

 

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About Us

About the Organization

Our professionals in our Corporate Functions cover a diverse range of areas from finance and risk to human resources and marketing. Our corporate teams are an essential part of our company, ensuring that we’re setting our businesses, clients, customers and employees up for success.Lead the development, support, and continuous improvement of a cross-runtime TLS abstraction library that decouples cryptographic configuration and capability from underlying language runtimes.