Senior Enterprise Security Engineer, Thumbtack
$179.4-272.8k
Salary range dependent on candidate location
Local services marketplace app
Open for applications
Local services marketplace app
1001+ employees
Open for applications
$179.4-272.8k
Salary range dependent on candidate location
1001+ employees
Company mission
Thumbtack's mission is to help homeowners care for their homes, all the way from minor retouching to fundamental remodelling projects.
Role
Who you are
- 6+ years of experience in security engineering, enterprise security, application security, cloud security, or a related field
- Experience developing threat models and proposing technical guardrails for AI tooling and agentic systems, including non-human identities, tool/permission scoping, and safe defaults for agent behavior
- Deep expertise in modern enterprise security disciplines: authentication and authorization (SSO, OAuth/OIDC, SAML, federation, SCIM), API security and token handling, secrets management, least-privilege design, SaaS security and posture management
- Strong experience evaluating risk and conducting security design and architecture reviews across enterprise applications, SaaS platforms, integrations, and internally developed systems, including evaluating data flows, third-party integrations, trust boundaries, automation platforms, AI-connected workflows, and emerging integration patterns such as MCP
- Strong experience securing modern, cloud-native systems (AWS and/or GCP) and familiarity with core control domains such as audit logging, encryption, access control, data retention, and incident response
- Strong sense of ownership and accountability, balancing hands-on technical execution with the ability to mentor others, raise standards, and drive measurable improvements in enterprise security
- Excellent written and verbal communication skills, with the ability to influence without authority and translate technical risk into clear requirements and actionable guidance for both technical and non-technical audiences
What the job involves
- The Security Engineering team at Thumbtack is focused on enabling innovation at scale by making the secure path the easiest path. We believe strong security is not a blocker to velocity, but a force multiplier when it is designed into systems, platforms, and developer workflows from the start
- We partner closely with teams across the organization to shape system design, guide architectural decisions, and evolve Thumbtack’s security posture as the company scales. Through collaboration, automation, and thoughtful tradeoffs, we help ensure Thumbtack can ship fast, innovate boldly, and maintain customer trust
- This role focuses on improving AI-adjacent security at Thumbtack, including the agents, identities, integrations, and data pipelines that modern AI systems depend on. It also covers broader security engineering work across the enterprise platforms and services that support them
- Deliver high-quality security assessments and threat models for first-party and third-party AI tools, agents, and AI-integrated systems, ensuring they adhere to enterprise security principles and approved patterns, with sound authentication, authorization, data access, and observability by design
- Design and validate technical guardrails and reusable patterns that keep AI usage safe at Thumbtack. This spans AI behavior (safe defaults for agent actions, tool and permission scoping, human-in-the-loop boundaries for sensitive access, input and output controls, audit and observability) and AI connectivity (MCP servers, integrations, trust boundaries, and the data pipelines that feed first- and third-party AI systems). Contribute to the frameworks and tooling that support secure AI development and use across Thumbtack
- Harden IAM across the enterprise, with particular focus on the non-human and delegated identities behind AI systems (service accounts, agent credentials, SaaS-to-SaaS OAuth, and SCIM federation). Bring least-privilege and lifecycle hygiene to identities that increasingly act at machine speed
- Provide broader security engineering support across Thumbtack's enterprise platforms and services, including SaaS security and posture management, third-party and integration security, data governance, endpoint security, and identity-centric controls. Build paved paths, shared tooling, and automation that scale these controls
- Lead cross-functional security initiatives end-to-end. Partner with IT, Engineering, Legal, Privacy, Procurement, and business stakeholders to surface risk early, set clear requirements, and support scalable adoption of secure patterns. Conduct security design and architecture reviews for enterprise applications, SaaS platforms, and internally developed systems
- Mentor engineers and partner-team members, raising the overall security bar through guidance and example
- Support security incident response and drive learning through post-incident analysis
Our take
ThumbTack is a local services marketplace app that pairs customers with skilled professionals. Instead of simply searching for a professional, users provide ThumbTack with details of the job they need completing and the professionals then pitch their services to the potential customer using credits. ThumbTack makes its money by charging the professional for these credits.
It positions itself as something a little different in a saturated local services space that is dominated by companies like Angie’s List, TaskRabbit, Yelp, eBay, and Amazon. It also focuses on a broad range of professionals, from traditional home services like electricians and painters to photographers, personal trainers, and birthday party magicians.
The COVID-19 pandemic saw a boost in business for ThumbTack as more people stayed at home and made changes to their properties, increasing the demand for home professionals. In fact, after 2019, the company doubled in value to $3.2 billion with its 2021 raise. Since its 2024 funding round, its updated app has 30 new features, and the company is partnering with the likes of trade-powering platform and Unicorn ServiceTitan, indicating Thumbtack's sustained sway in the market.
Freddie
Company Specialist at Welcome to the Jungle
Insights
-5% employee growth in 12 months
Company
Funding (last 2 of 9 rounds)
Jun 2021
$275m
LATE VC
Jul 2019
$150m
SERIES F
Total funding: $699.4m
Company benefits
- Parental leave
- Health insurance
- Community matters | Sure, our ways of connecting have changed. But we haven’t missed a beat, from virtual concerts to “TTversary” celebrations to weekly catch-ups
- Always be improving | We bring out the best in our colleagues — and our product — by pushing each beyond what we believe we’re capable of. We give honest feedback, even when it’s hard
- Wellness is a way of life | We promote balance with generous PTO and company-wide holidays — and find our centers every Wellness Wednesday with yoga featuring a Thumbtack pro
- A worthy mission | In a world where tech is often seen as eroding good jobs, we’re helping small business owners thrive. Our product makes entrepreneurship accessible to everyone
- Driven by our values | Our values are the compass by which we make all our decisions. Each one matters: Lead with why, Make it count, Own it, Choose teamwork, and Say what you mean
- Plus, amazing benefits | All the benefits you’d expect, plus a few more: generous parental and fertility benefits, $1800 for Thumbtack services per year and a $1200 remote work stipend
- Virtual-first working model coupled with quarterly in-person events and Camp Thumbtack
- 20+ company-wide holidays including two week-long shutdowns
- Libraries (collaborative workspaces) in San Francisco, Salt Lake City, Toronto, and Manila
- Cell phone and WiFi reimbursements
- Subscriptions and Employee Assistance Program for mental health and well-being
Company HQ
SoMa, San Francisco, CA
Leadership
Marco Zappacosta
(Co-Founder & CEO)Having studied at Columbia University, Marco co-founded Thumbtack in August 2008. He has served as CEO since January 2009.
Jonathan Swanson
(Co-Founder & Chairman)Jonathan started his career creating financial market reports for the White House before co-founding Thumbtack in 2008. Currently Founder at Powerset and Athena.
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