Senior Security Analyst, Security Risk Management
ABOUT THE TEAM:
The Security Governance, Risk, and Compliance (GRC) team is part of Plaid’s security organization, focused on enabling the business by proactively managing information security risks and maintaining effective controls.
Our mission is to reduce the likelihood and impact of security risks while operating a robust assurance program that builds trust with our customers, consumers, and data partners.We partner closely across the company to ensure Plaid’s platform remains secure, resilient, and aligned with industry and regulatory expectations.Security risk management is how Plaid makes informed security trade-offs—we identify and analyze the risks that could materially affect the business, make sure the right owners decide what to do about them, and turn that picture into reporting leadership and the board can act on.
ABOUT THE ROLE:
- You will run security risk assessments end-to-end within Plaid’s security risk management program—intake, scenario-based analysis, treatment decisions, and monitoring across security, infrastructure, and product risk.
- You will work with engineering SMEs and risk owners on risks ranging from over-privileged access and supply-chain gaps to product abuse and AI adoption, giving owners a clear, defensible basis for accepting or mitigating each one.
- You will build quarterly security risk reporting and the security risk content in leadership and board materials.
- You will help integrate security risk into enterprise risk management, so it is tracked and weighed alongside the rest of the business.
- You will help mature the program as its scope grows, and operate as an AI power user who automates the work so it scales.
RESPONSIBILITIES:
- Run Security Risk Assessments: Triage intake, run scenario-based risk analyses with engineering SMEs, score initial and residual risk, and drive risk owners to a documented treatment decision. Your analysis turns vague concerns into decisions leadership can stand behind.
- Build Quarterly Risk Reporting: Gather updates on material risks, prepare the Security Risk Review, and build the security risk content for executive and board decks. Your reporting gives leadership a clear, current view of where security risk sits and what’s being done about it.
- Integrate Security Risk into ERM: Partner with enterprise risk stakeholders to map security risks into the enterprise taxonomy, align rating scales, and keep the registers in sync. Your work puts security risk alongside business risk instead of in a silo.
- Mature the Program: Help evolve the risk framework, register, key risk indicators, and risk-owner self-service as the program’s scope grows. Your work moves the program from tracking risks to measuring and reducing them.
- Support FedRAMP 20x Risk Decisions: Help make sure unmet FedRAMP rules and KSI gaps carry a documented risk explanation and senior-official acceptance in the Security Decision Record, consistent with the risk register. Your work keeps Plaid’s FedRAMP risk posture defensible to agencies and assessors.
- Scale Through AI and Automation: Build AI skills and automations for intake triage, first-draft risk analyses, register hygiene, and report generation—and share them across the team. Your approach lets the program cover more risk without adding headcount.
QUALIFICATIONS:
Must haves:
- Security risk assessment:
- Experience running scenario-based analyses of technical risks (cloud, IAM, software supply chain, application and product) using NIST SP 800-30, FAIR, or a comparable method.
- Technical depth to engage engineers on architecture and controls, and to tell a real exposure from a hypothetical one.
- Risk program maturity and ERM integration:
- Experience building or maturing a security risk program—methodology, register, treatment and exception workflow, and key risk indicators.
- Experience integrating security risk into an enterprise risk management program.
- Risk reporting and executive communication:
- Experience preparing quarterly risk reporting and building security risk content for executive and board decks.
- Ability to turn technical risk into a concise executive narrative without overstating or hand-waving.
- Security and compliance knowledge:
- Working knowledge of NIST 800-53, NIST CSF, ISO 27001, and SOC 2, and how risk management feeds each.
- AI fluency and tooling:
- Power user who has built AI skills, agents, or automations that materially increase risk-program throughput—and who shares what works with the team.
Nice to have:
- Hands-on FedRAMP 20x experience, including Security Decision Record reporting for rules and Key Security Indicators (SDR-CSO-FRR, SDR-CSX-KSI).