Senior Customer Architect - AppSec (Enterprise and Federal) at Harnessinc

Harness is the AI Software Delivery Platform company, led by technologist and entrepreneur Jyoti Bansal (founder of AppDynamics, acquired by Cisco for $3.7B). Harness has raised approximately $570M in funding and is valued at $5.5B, backed by leading investors including Goldman Sachs, Menlo Ventures, IVP, Unusual Ventures, Citi Ventures, and more. As AI accelerates code creation, the real bottleneck has shifted to everything after the code – testing, deployments, application security, reliability, compliance, and cost optimization. Harness brings AI and automation to this “outer loop,” helping teams ship software faster while maintaining security and governance throughout the entire software delivery lifecycle. Powered by Harness AI and the Software Delivery Knowledge Graph, the Harness Platform applies deep context and intelligent automation across the software delivery lifecycle with governance and policy-driven controls embedded throughout the platform. Over the past year, Harness powered over 185M deployments, 82M builds, 18T flag evaluations, 8M security scans, 9.1B optimized tests, 3T protected API calls, and helped manage $2.8B in cloud spend — enabling customers like United Airlines, Morningstar, and Choice Hotels to accelerate releases by up to 75%, reduce cloud costs by up to 60%, and achieve 10x DevOps efficiency. With a global team across 14 offices and 25 countries, Harness is shaping the future of AI software delivery — and we’re looking for exceptional talent to help us move even faster. Position Summary We are seeking an experienced, highly technical and customer-centric Customer Architect - AppSec (Forward Deployed Engineer) to join our Customer Success team. In this role, you will play a crucial role as a technical solution expert and advisor working closely with some of the largest Harness AppSec customers to design, implement and optimize Harness platform and adoption strategies to ensure they realize maximum value and outcomes. Our team is small, collaborative, and deeply motivated — we work at the intersection of technology, security, and business, and we bring curiosity and rigor to a wide range of challenges. You will have the opportunity to contribute meaningfully to a rapidly growing company while helping customers harness the power of our AI-enabled DevSecOps platform to build and deliver software securely and efficiently — including protecting AI applications from emerging threats. We prioritize psychological safety, mentorship, and continuous learning. Whether you're coming from engineering, architecture, consulting, or security — we want to hear from you. About the role • Serve as the primary technical owner of customer implementations and adoption programs across the Harness AppSec portfolio, developing deep familiarity with each customer's environment, goals, and success criteria • Provide hands-on technical guidance and consulting to customers throughout the customer lifecycle, from onboarding and implementation to adoption and value realization. • Develop strategic account success plans to ensure successful operationalization and value realization and drive alignment with all levels of customer leadership. • Develop and maintain a deep understanding of Harness platform and AppSec modules as well as general skillset across AI applications and security, DevOps, SecOps, application security, cloud architectures, networks and infrastructure disciplines and industry trends to effectively support, educate and advise customers. • Proactively analyze customer usage data to surface trends, adoption gaps, and optimization opportunities — delivering actionable recommendations across technology, process, and people dimensions. • Bring constructive feedback from customers to product management to improve the solution, and collaborate with cross-functional teams, including sales, product, and engineering, to drive the successful adoption, integration, and ongoing optimization of our solution. • Conduct regular business reviews and check-ins with customers to ensure their ongoing success and satisfaction, addressing any concerns or issues in a timely and effective manner. • Proactively identify at-risk accounts by performing churn and adoption analysis to ensure target product adoption and business (AGRR) goals are met. • Contribute to the development and refinement of customer success processes, tools, and resources to continuously improve the efficiency and effectiveness of our customer success delivery methodologies and collateral. • Participate in Harness Community forums and help build reference architectures, best-practice guides, and enablement content About you • 7+ years of experience in software engineering, solutions architecture, technical consulting, security engineering, or technical account management within the software or technology industry. • 5+ years of experience with some multiple of the following solutions preferred: • Cloud & Infrastructure: AWS, GCP, Azure, Terraform, CloudFormation, Linux • Containers & Orchestration: Kubernetes, Helm, Kustomize, OpenShift, PCF • CI/CD & DevOps: Jenkins, GitHub Actions, GitLab CI, Harness Pipelines, Jira, ServiceNow. • Languages & Scripting: Python, Bash, YAML, Go (a plus). • Application Security: SAST, DAST, SCA, IAST, SBOM generation, API security testing, pen testing fundamentals, SIEM (Splunk, Datadog), SOAR platforms. • Prior experience in security engineering and architecture, application security, API and AI security, development, DevOps, SecOps, or web security is preferred. • Ability to quickly learn, understand, and work with new emerging technologies and solutions in the AI, DevOps, Cloud and Security space. • Exceptional interpersonal, communication, and relationship-building skills, with a proven ability to manage complex customer relationships and communicate business and technical value to all levels of management. • Excellent problem-solving and analytical skills, with the ability to quickly diagnose and resolve technical issues. • Detail-oriented and highly organized, with the ability to manage multiple priorities and deadlines simultaneously. • Comfortable working in a fast-paced, dynamic environment, with a strong commitment to continuous learning and growth. • Bachelor's degree in a related field, such as Computer Science, Information Technology, or Engineering is preferred Work Location • Remote - U.S., Eastern Time Zone. Some travel may be required. What you will have at Harness • Competitive salary • Comprehensive healthcare benefits • Flexible Spending Account (FSA) • Flexible work schedule • Employee Assistance Program (EAP) • Flexible Time Off and Parental Leave • Monthly, quarterly, and annual social and team building events • Monthly internet reimbursement The anticipated base salary range for this position is $160,000 and $170,000 annually. Salary is determined by a combination of factors including location, level, relevant experience, and skills. The range displayed on each job posting reflects the minimum and maximum target for new hire salaries for the position across all US locations. The compensation package for this position also includes a commission/variable component, which is based on performance, plus equity, and benefits. More details about our company benefits can be found at the following link: [Upgrade to PRO to see link] Pay transparency$160,000—$170,000 USD Harness in the news: • Accelerating Our Mission to Bring AI to Everything After Code • Goldman Sachs leads investment in software delivery startup Harness at $5.5 billion valuation • How Harness runs 16 “startups within a startup” at scale | Jyoti Bansal • Harness Research Shows AI Visibility Crisis Fueling Security Nightmare • Harness has been named to the Inc. Power Partner list for software delivery success All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex or national origin. Note on Fraudulent Recruiting/Offers We have become aware that there may be fraudulent recruiting attempts being made by people posing as representatives of Harness. These scams may involve fake job postings, unsolicited emails, or messages claiming to be from our recruiters or hiring managers. Please note, we do not ask for sensitive or financial information via chat, text, or social media, and any email communications will come from the domain @harness.io. Additionally, Harness will never ask for any payment, fee to be paid, or purchases to be made by a job applicant. All applicants are encouraged to apply directly to our open jobs via our website. Interviews are generally conducted via Zoom video conference unless the candidate requests other accommodations. If you believe that you have been the target of an interview/offer scam by someone posing as a representative of Harness, please do not provide any personal or financial information and contact us immediately at [Upgrade to PRO to see contact]. You can also find additional information about this type of scam and report any fraudulent employment offers via the Federal Trade Commission’s website ([Upgrade to PRO to see link] or you can contact your local law enforcement agency.