Senior Security Engineer- Ireland

About the Role

Hopper's Security team is small by design and consequential by impact- and this role sits at the centre of it. As a Senior Security Engineer, you'll own the tooling, automation, and processes that keep our applications secure across their entire lifecycle, building the systems that make security invisible to developers and unavoidable by default. This is a builder's role in every sense: you'll write code, ship tools, and use AI as a core part of how you work — not as a novelty, but as a force multiplier.

What would your day-to-day look like

• Own and evolve our vulnerability management program with a focus on application security — container images, dependencies, code scanning, and runtime detection
• Build and maintain security tooling that integrates directly into CI/CD pipelines and developer workflows, so security happens automatically rather than as a gate
• Use AI extensively to write code faster, automate analyses that would otherwise require manual review, and build intelligent tooling that scales beyond what a small team could achieve manually
• Assess and improve how we leverage available telemetry across our systems
• Work directly with engineering teams to influence secure development practices — not by writing standards and documents, but by shipping tools and defaults that make the secure path the easy path
• Investigate and respond to security findings when needed, but spend more of your time building systems that prevent and detect issues than manually chasing them
• Adapt quickly as priorities shift — our team is agile and tomorrow's challenge may look different from todays

An ideal candidate has

• At least 5 years experience software and/or platform engineering, with the ability to design, build, and maintain production-quality tools
• Deep experience in application security and vulnerability management — you understand CVEs, dependency risks, container security, and SDLC integration, and you have opinions about what's worth fixing and what's noise
• Hands-on experience with cloud infrastructure, ideally GCP/GKE or equivalent, with the ability to adapt to our stack
• A demonstrated habit of using AI tools — coding assistants, LLMs — as a core part of how you build and analyse, not an occasional shortcut
• A bias toward automation — when you see a repetitive manual task, your instinct is to write a tool, not a runbook
• Comfort with ambiguity and ownership — you'll often be the only person on a problem and will need to make judgment calls on priority, approach, and scope without waiting for direction
• Experience influencing engineering culture around security, knowing how to make developers care without slowing them down
• Strong written and verbal communication skills, including the ability to articulate our security posture clearly to customers when needed

Perks and benefits of working with us

• Well-funded and proven startup with large ambitions, competitive salary and the upsides of pre-IPO equity packages.
• Carrot Cash travel stipend
• Flexdesk All Access Pass & Work-from-home stipend
• Entrepreneurial culture where pushing limits and taking risks is everyday business
• Open communication with management and company leadership
• Small, dynamic teams = massive impact

Engagement Status: Independent Contractor

Note on Contractual Status: This position is offered as an Independent Contractor engagement (Contract for Services) and does not constitute an offer of direct employment. The successful candidate will operate as a self-employed individual or through a Personal Service Company (PSC). You will be responsible for your own tax, PRSI, and VAT compliance in accordance with Irish Revenue Commissioners regulations. Engagement is contingent upon providing proof of valid business registration and appropriate professional indemnity insurance.

More about Hopper

At Hopper, we are on a mission to become the leading travel platform globally – powering Hopper’s mobile app, website and our B2B business, HTS (Hopper Technology Solutions). By leveraging massive amounts of data and advanced machine learning algorithms, Hopper combines its world-class travel agency offering with proprietary fintech products to bring transparency, flexibility and savings to travelers globally. We have developed several unique fintech solutions that address everything from pricing volatility to trip disruptions – helping people travel better and save more on their trips.

The Hopper platform serves hundreds of millions of travelers globally and continues to capture market share around the world. The Hopper app has been downloaded over 120 million times and has become largely popular among younger travelers – with 70% of its users being Gen Z and millennials.

While everyone knows us as the Gen Z and Millennial travel app, Hopper has evolved to become much more than that. In recent years, we’ve grown into a travel fintech provider, commerce platform, and global travel agency that powers some of the world’s largest brands.

Through HTS, our B2B division, the company supercharges its partners’ direct channels by integrating our fintech products on their sites or powering end-to-end travel portals. Today, our partners include leading travel brands like Capital One, Nubank, Air Canada, and many more.

Here are just a few stats that demonstrate the company’s recent growth:

• Billions of dollars worth of travel and travel fintech are sold through Hopper and HTS’ channels every year.
• Our fintech products – including Cancel for Any Reason and Flight Disruption Assistance – have exceptionally strong CSAT because the terms are always clear, and customers receive instant, no-questions-asked resolutions.
• Almost 30% of our app customers purchase at least one fintech product when making a booking; and consumers are 1.6x more likely to repurchase if they add fintech to their booking vs if they booked just travel.
• Given the success of its fintech products, Hopper launched a B2B initiative, HTS (Hopper Technology Solutions), which represents more than 75% of the business.
• Through HTS, any travel provider (airlines, hotels, banks, travel agencies, etc.) can integrate and seamlessly distribute Hopper’s fintech or travel inventory on their direct channels. As its first HTS partnership, the company partnered with Capital One to co-develop Capital One Travel, a new travel portal designed specifically for cardholders. Other HTS partners include Air Canada, Uber, CommBank, Nubank, Flair Airlines and many more.

Come take off with us!

This role utilizes automated decision-making systems to assess candidate suitability. Under local regulations, you have the right to understand the principal factors used in this assessment, request a correction of your data, or request a human review of any automated decision. To exercise these rights, please contact privacy@hopper.com

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