Security Engineer Jobs in San Diego, CA
Security Engineer jobs in San Diego are in strong demand, concentrated in Sorrento Valley, Kearny Mesa, and Downtown along the waterfront, across defense contracting, cybersecurity, and biotech. Employers actively hiring include Qualcomm, ServiceNow, and Booz Allen Hamilton. Find a role that fits below and apply directly.
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Showing 5 of 30+ Security Engineer jobs
DESCRIPTION
We are open to hiring candidates to work out of one of the following locations:
San Diego, CA
When was the last time you heard of a cyber-attack that took down a host of companies due to poor Authentication controls? Likely a few times in the last few months. At Amazon Web Services (AWS), our team is building out a renewed set of Foundational Access Management capabilities for all of Amazon’s digital and physical resources. We are a fun, collaborative team, and we focus on empowering everyone on the team achieve their next goal.
We are responsible for the protection of customer and corporate data, while being connected to all parts of Amazon's business and its massive worldwide service-oriented architecture. Whether you're passionate about building highly scalable and reliable systems in the cloud or a software developer who likes to solve interesting and complex business problems, AWS Security is the place for you.
We are looking for a Software Development Engineer to design, build, and operate Amazon Foundation Security Services within Access Management Systems. There is ample opportunity to innovate and deliver high impact outcomes. You will collaborate with the leadership team to drive key engineering and business decisions that will influence the Amazon developer experience. You will contribute to all parts of the software development and deployment lifecycle across the entire Amazon development community, including design, implementation, documentation, deployment and operations across multiple products.
Successful candidates for this position will have strong software engineering fundamentals such as object-oriented design, algorithms, data structures, and a good grasp of advanced systems concepts and design. They must possess strong verbal and written communication skills, be self-driven and deliver high results. They need to really enjoy working closely with their peers within a group of very talented engineers and builders.
This position involves on-call responsibilities, typically for one week every two months. We don’t like getting paged in the middle of the night or on the weekend, so we work to ensure that our systems are fault tolerant. When we do get paged, we work together to resolve the root cause so that we don’t get paged for the same issue twice.
Key job responsibilities
Each day, hundreds of thousands of developers and customers make billions of transactions worldwide on our cloud and the Amazon retail site. Amazon Foundational Security Services owns the security bar for all of these services offered by AWS, including EC2, S3, and many others, as well as the security of our global retail sites.
We are the Access Management Services organization, part of Amazon Foundational Security Services, and we strive to provide our customers with secure by default security services which help them discover, organize, and manage resources while achieving least privilege access control with the least amount of human intervention possible. Our team works across all of Amazon and AWS to solve security challenges at massive scale relating to authorization and access control. We dive deep into security technologies such as new access control design patterns, automated workflows, and life cycle management to support our customers as Amazon continues to scale and grow.
A day in the life
Amazon has a fast-paced environment where we “Work Hard, Have Fun, Make History.” A typical day on our team involves working with users to design new security features, prototyping and demonstrating features to your users, deploying software through our large automated systems, and operationally supporting your newly deployed software. You will look for new approaches to automate fixes for operational issues. You will also get use AWS services to solve design problems while you interact with Amazon and AWS teams to integrate your application with theirs.
Our team also puts a high value on work-life balance. Striking a healthy balance between your personal and professional life is crucial to your happiness and success here, which is why we aren’t focused on how many hours you spend at work or online. Instead, we’re happy to offer a flexible schedule so you can have a more productive and well-balanced life—both in and outside of work.
About the team
Diverse Experiences
Amazon Security values diverse experiences. Even if you do not meet all of the qualifications and skills listed in the job description, we encourage candidates to apply. If your career is just starting, hasn’t followed a traditional path, or includes alternative experiences, don’t let it stop you from applying.
Why Amazon Security?
At Amazon, security is central to maintaining customer trust and delivering delightful customer experiences. Our organization is responsible for creating and maintaining a high bar for security across all of Amazon’s products and services. We offer talented security professionals the chance to accelerate their careers with opportunities to build experience in a wide variety of areas including cloud, devices, retail, entertainment, healthcare, operations, and physical stores.
Inclusive Team Culture
In Amazon Security, it’s in our nature to learn and be curious. Ongoing DEI events and learning experiences inspire us to continue learning and to embrace our uniqueness. Addressing the toughest security challenges requires that we seek out and celebrate a diversity of ideas, perspectives, and voices.
Training & Career Growth
We’re continuously raising our performance bar as we strive to become Earth’s Best Employer. That’s why you’ll find endless knowledge-sharing, training, and other career-advancing resources here to help you develop into a better-rounded professional.
Work/Life Balance
We value work-life harmony. Achieving success at work should never come at the expense of sacrifices at home, which is why flexible work hours and arrangements are part of our culture. When we feel supported in the workplace and at home, there’s nothing we can’t achieve.
BASIC QUALIFICATIONS
- 3+ years of non-internship professional software development experience
- 2+ years of non-internship design or architecture (design patterns, reliability and scaling) of new and existing systems experience
- Experience programming with at least one software programming language
PREFERRED QUALIFICATIONS
- 3+ years of full software development life cycle, including coding standards, code reviews, source control management, build processes, testing, and operations experience
- Bachelor's degree in computer science or equivalent
Amazon is an equal opportunity employer and does not discriminate on the basis of protected veteran status, disability, or other legally protected status.
Los Angeles County applicants: Job duties for this position include: work safely and cooperatively with other employees, supervisors, and staff; adhere to standards of excellence despite stressful conditions; communicate effectively and respectfully with employees, supervisors, and staff to ensure exceptional customer service; and follow all federal, state, and local laws and Company policies. Criminal history may have a direct, adverse, and negative relationship with some of the material job duties of this position. These include the duties and responsibilities listed above, as well as the abilities to adhere to company policies, exercise sound judgment, effectively manage stress and work safely and respectfully with others, exhibit trustworthiness and professionalism, and safeguard business operations and the Company’s reputation. Pursuant to the Los Angeles County Fair Chance Ordinance, we will consider for employment qualified applicants with arrest and conviction records.
Our inclusive culture empowers Amazonians to deliver the best results for our customers. If you have a disability and need a workplace accommodation or adjustment during the application and hiring process, including support for the interview or onboarding process, please visit https://amazon.jobs/content/en/how-we-hire/accommodations for more information. If the country/region you’re applying in isn’t listed, please contact your Recruiting Partner.
The base salary range for this position is listed below. Your Amazon package will include sign-on payments and restricted stock units (RSUs). Final compensation will be determined based on factors including experience, qualifications, and location. Amazon also offers comprehensive benefits including health insurance (medical, dental, vision, prescription, Basic Life & AD&D insurance and option for Supplemental life plans, EAP, Mental Health Support, Medical Advice Line, Flexible Spending Accounts, Adoption and Surrogacy Reimbursement coverage), 401(k) matching, paid time off, and parental leave. Learn more about our benefits at https://amazon.jobs/en/benefits.
USA, CA, San Diego - 143,700.00 - 194,400.00 USD annually
DESCRIPTION
We are open to hiring candidates to work out of one of the following locations:
San Diego, CA
When was the last time you heard of a cyber-attack that took down a host of companies due to poor Authentication controls? Likely a few times in the last few months. At Amazon Web Services (AWS), our team is building out a renewed set of Foundational Access Management capabilities for all of Amazon’s digital and physical resources. We are a fun, collaborative team, and we focus on empowering everyone on the team achieve their next goal.
We are responsible for the protection of customer and corporate data, while being connected to all parts of Amazon's business and its massive worldwide service-oriented architecture. Whether you're passionate about building highly scalable and reliable systems in the cloud or a software developer who likes to solve interesting and complex business problems, AWS Security is the place for you.
We are looking for a Software Development Engineer to design, build, and operate Amazon Foundation Security Services within Access Management Systems. There is ample opportunity to innovate and deliver high impact outcomes. You will collaborate with the leadership team to drive key engineering and business decisions that will influence the Amazon developer experience. You will contribute to all parts of the software development and deployment lifecycle across the entire Amazon development community, including design, implementation, documentation, deployment and operations across multiple products.
Successful candidates for this position will have strong software engineering fundamentals such as object-oriented design, algorithms, data structures, and a good grasp of advanced systems concepts and design. They must possess strong verbal and written communication skills, be self-driven and deliver high results. They need to really enjoy working closely with their peers within a group of very talented engineers and builders.
This position involves on-call responsibilities, typically for one week every two months. We don’t like getting paged in the middle of the night or on the weekend, so we work to ensure that our systems are fault tolerant. When we do get paged, we work together to resolve the root cause so that we don’t get paged for the same issue twice.
Key job responsibilities
Each day, hundreds of thousands of developers and customers make billions of transactions worldwide on our cloud and the Amazon retail site. Amazon Foundational Security Services owns the security bar for all of these services offered by AWS, including EC2, S3, and many others, as well as the security of our global retail sites.
We are the Access Management Services organization, part of Amazon Foundational Security Services, and we strive to provide our customers with secure by default security services which help them discover, organize, and manage resources while achieving least privilege access control with the least amount of human intervention possible. Our team works across all of Amazon and AWS to solve security challenges at massive scale relating to authorization and access control. We dive deep into security technologies such as new access control design patterns, automated workflows, and life cycle management to support our customers as Amazon continues to scale and grow.
A day in the life
Amazon has a fast-paced environment where we “Work Hard, Have Fun, Make History.” A typical day on our team involves working with users to design new security features, prototyping and demonstrating features to your users, deploying software through our large automated systems, and operationally supporting your newly deployed software. You will look for new approaches to automate fixes for operational issues. You will also get use AWS services to solve design problems while you interact with Amazon and AWS teams to integrate your application with theirs.
Our team also puts a high value on work-life balance. Striking a healthy balance between your personal and professional life is crucial to your happiness and success here, which is why we aren’t focused on how many hours you spend at work or online. Instead, we’re happy to offer a flexible schedule so you can have a more productive and well-balanced life—both in and outside of work.
About the team
Diverse Experiences
Amazon Security values diverse experiences. Even if you do not meet all of the qualifications and skills listed in the job description, we encourage candidates to apply. If your career is just starting, hasn’t followed a traditional path, or includes alternative experiences, don’t let it stop you from applying.
Why Amazon Security?
At Amazon, security is central to maintaining customer trust and delivering delightful customer experiences. Our organization is responsible for creating and maintaining a high bar for security across all of Amazon’s products and services. We offer talented security professionals the chance to accelerate their careers with opportunities to build experience in a wide variety of areas including cloud, devices, retail, entertainment, healthcare, operations, and physical stores.
Inclusive Team Culture
In Amazon Security, it’s in our nature to learn and be curious. Ongoing DEI events and learning experiences inspire us to continue learning and to embrace our uniqueness. Addressing the toughest security challenges requires that we seek out and celebrate a diversity of ideas, perspectives, and voices.
Training & Career Growth
We’re continuously raising our performance bar as we strive to become Earth’s Best Employer. That’s why you’ll find endless knowledge-sharing, training, and other career-advancing resources here to help you develop into a better-rounded professional.
Work/Life Balance
We value work-life harmony. Achieving success at work should never come at the expense of sacrifices at home, which is why flexible work hours and arrangements are part of our culture. When we feel supported in the workplace and at home, there’s nothing we can’t achieve.
BASIC QUALIFICATIONS
- 3+ years of non-internship professional software development experience
- 2+ years of non-internship design or architecture (design patterns, reliability and scaling) of new and existing systems experience
- Experience programming with at least one software programming language
PREFERRED QUALIFICATIONS
- 3+ years of full software development life cycle, including coding standards, code reviews, source control management, build processes, testing, and operations experience
- Bachelor's degree in computer science or equivalent
Amazon is an equal opportunity employer and does not discriminate on the basis of protected veteran status, disability, or other legally protected status.
Los Angeles County applicants: Job duties for this position include: work safely and cooperatively with other employees, supervisors, and staff; adhere to standards of excellence despite stressful conditions; communicate effectively and respectfully with employees, supervisors, and staff to ensure exceptional customer service; and follow all federal, state, and local laws and Company policies. Criminal history may have a direct, adverse, and negative relationship with some of the material job duties of this position. These include the duties and responsibilities listed above, as well as the abilities to adhere to company policies, exercise sound judgment, effectively manage stress and work safely and respectfully with others, exhibit trustworthiness and professionalism, and safeguard business operations and the Company’s reputation. Pursuant to the Los Angeles County Fair Chance Ordinance, we will consider for employment qualified applicants with arrest and conviction records.
Our inclusive culture empowers Amazonians to deliver the best results for our customers. If you have a disability and need a workplace accommodation or adjustment during the application and hiring process, including support for the interview or onboarding process, please visit https://amazon.jobs/content/en/how-we-hire/accommodations for more information. If the country/region you’re applying in isn’t listed, please contact your Recruiting Partner.
The base salary range for this position is listed below. Your Amazon package will include sign-on payments and restricted stock units (RSUs). Final compensation will be determined based on factors including experience, qualifications, and location. Amazon also offers comprehensive benefits including health insurance (medical, dental, vision, prescription, Basic Life & AD&D insurance and option for Supplemental life plans, EAP, Mental Health Support, Medical Advice Line, Flexible Spending Accounts, Adoption and Surrogacy Reimbursement coverage), 401(k) matching, paid time off, and parental leave. Learn more about our benefits at https://amazon.jobs/en/benefits.
USA, CA, San Diego - 143,700.00 - 194,400.00 USD annually
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Find Security Engineer JobsSecurity Engineer Job Market in San Diego
Who's Hiring
Top Industries Hiring
- Technology & Software
- Manufacturing
- Telecommunications
- Electronics & Hardware
Security Engineer Jobs in San Diego: Frequently Asked Questions
How do I get a security engineer job in San Diego?
Focus your search on San Diego's defense corridor in Sorrento Valley and Kearny Mesa, where government contractors, cybersecurity firms, and naval-adjacent technology companies concentrate most of their security engineering headcount. Clearance eligibility gives candidates a measurable edge here, as does experience with network security, cloud infrastructure, or embedded systems. Targeting mid-sized defense and biotech employers tends to yield faster hiring cycles than pursuing large primes directly.
Which companies hire security engineers in San Diego?
San Diego security engineer roles are posted by Qualcomm, ServiceNow, and Booz Allen Hamilton and others right now, based on current listings on Migrate Mate as of November 2026. The local market skews heavily toward defense primes, government contractors, and technology companies supporting the Navy and Marine Corps installations throughout the region.
Are there remote security engineer jobs in San Diego?
Yes, though it depends on the type of role, since hands-on network or hardware security work is almost always on-site while threat analysis, cloud security architecture, and compliance-focused positions are more frequently remote. About 67% of security engineer openings tied to San Diego are remote or hybrid as of November 2026, with the most remote-friendly roles concentrated in software-side and analytical functions rather than infrastructure or cleared positions.
How can I get a security engineer job in San Diego with little or no experience?
The most realistic entry path in San Diego is targeting a junior security analyst or IT security associate role at one of the region's many mid-sized defense contractors or managed security service providers, which regularly hire candidates with CompTIA Security+ certification and a foundational IT background. Cyber Vet programs and internships tied to the military transition community are also active in San Diego, making veterans and those with any cleared background particularly competitive for entry-level openings.
Which industries hire the most security engineers in San Diego?
The sectors hiring the most security engineers in San Diego are Technology & Software, Manufacturing, and Telecommunications, based on current listings on Migrate Mate as of November 2026. San Diego's large concentration of naval installations, defense contractors, and life sciences companies drives sustained demand across all three sectors throughout the year.
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