Application Security Engineer Job Description, Duties, and Responsibilities

By | August 16, 2023
Application Security Engineer Job Description
Application Security Engineers ensure organizations’ data, systems, and applications are secured.

Application Security Engineer Job Description, Duties, and Responsibilities

This post provides exhaustive information about the job description of an application security engineer to help you learn what they do.

It presents the key duties, tasks, and responsibilities that commonly make up the application security engineer work description in most organizations.

This post also presents the major requirements applicants for the application security engineer job are usually asked to meet by recruiters to be qualified for hiring.

Please, continue reading to increase your knowledge of the application security engineer career:

What Does an Application Security Engineer Do?

The application security engineer is responsible for securing data, systems, and applications. They ensure that an organization’s applications and services are implemented with high standards and are secure.

Their job description entails leading efforts to securing code, including code reviews, project security reviews, and penetration testing support, and application scanning processes throughout the stages of the software development lifecycle.

Application security engineers work as a part of the security engineering team and help to guarantee that all of a firm’s software and infrastructure are designed and implemented with best security practices in mind.

They collaborate with other IT professionals to harden its systems and applications to better protect user data.

The application security engineer work description also involves working closely with developers to help improve the security of their products and services, as well as designing technical solutions to address security weaknesses, and working with relevant stakeholders to implement them.

Application security engineers are also responsible for building systems at scale to prevent classes of vulnerabilities and rendering support with security incident response as required.

To work as an application security engineer, you must enjoy analyzing system services, spotting issues in code, networks and applications from a security perspective, and have troubleshooting skills to recognize security issues that appear under new threat scenarios.

Application Security Engineer Job Description Example/Sample/Template

Application security engineers perform various functions, including securing software applications that are developed and offered by the organization as software services for employees or customers.

The major tasks, duties, and responsibilities that make the application security engineer job description are listed below:

  • Help the organization evolve its application security functions and services
  • Responsible for upholding code reviews across all code platforms
  • Take charge of bug intake and remediation process for the organization
  • Provide leadership for application vulnerability scanning and penetration testing remediation
  • Manage integration with vulnerability check tools such as Static Code Analysis and Dynamic Code Analysis tools
  • Discover security exposures and develop mitigation plans, and also report and fix the technical debt
  • Provide support to the Information Security Manager on all application security activities
  • Represent the organization in Information Security programs
  • Actively participate in security initiatives with minimum supervision
  • Function as a subject matter expert for security solutions within the organization’s platform
  • Provide guidance to junior-level security engineers
  • Responsible for troubleshooting production issues and performance bottlenecks
  • Follow security best practices in performing tasks
  • Work closely with cross-functional teams (Engineering, DevOps, Product) while carrying out daily tasks
  • Contribute to requirement gathering with product teams
  • Work together with cross Business Unit teams on executing standardized security solutions and integrations
  • Partake in inner sourcing initiatives within the organization.

Application Security Engineer Job Description for Resume

If you have worked before as an application security engineer or are currently working in that role and are writing a new resume, your resume will be stronger if it has the work or job experience section.

The work experience part of the resume enables you to highlight the duties and responsibilities you have or are presently carrying out as an application security engineer.

This will show the recruiter how knowledgeable and competent you are as an application security engineer.

You can apply the sample application security engineer job description provided above in preparing your resume’s job experience section.

Application Security Engineer Requirements – Skills, Knowledge, and Abilities for Career Success

If you are seeking to work as an application security engineer, most recruiters will require you to fulfill certain requirements to qualify for hiring.

Shown below are major application security engineer requirements you may need to meet if you are applying for the job:

  • Education: Applicants for the application security engineer position require a minimum of Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science or Information Security, or in a related technical field. But some organizations may accept experience in lieu of degree
  • Certification: it is important to earn an information security professional certification such as (SANS GIAC, CISSP, etc.)
  • Knowledge: Employers seek application security engineers with extensive and deep technical knowledge, typically ranging from front-end UIs through to back-end systems and all points in between
  • They should also have strong software design and implementation know-how, strong familiarity with web protocols, a thorough knowledge of Linux/Unix tools and architecture, and be well-versed in application security and infrastructure security
  • To perform their role successfully, they must have technical expertise in at least one domain; software development, network engineering, authentication or security protocols, systems engineering, cryptography, or a combination of all. In addition, they should also be familiar with security best practices and have knowledge of common and emerging security threats
  • Organizational skills: it is important that applicants can make information security risk-based prioritization decisions, analyze business risk, and proffer complex business/risk trade-off recommendations and decisions
  • Result-orientation: In addition to identifying issues, it is vital that they have a predisposition for action to drive the remediation of these issues to reduce the risk for the organization
  • Teamwork and collaboration skills: Application security engineer work often with cross-functional teams and lead the remediation of security vulnerabilities, and act as a role model to junior security engineers. So it is crucial that they are a good team players with the ability to lead security initiatives
  • Communication skills: It is essential for them to have great communication skills to explain complex security topics in simple language and easy to understand concepts.

Application Security Engineer Salary

According to information on indeed, using estimates of 18 salaries submitted anonymously to Indeed by application security engineer employees, users, and data collected from past and present job advertisements on Indeed in the past 3 years, the average salary for an application security engineer is $147,725 per annum in New York, NY, which is 17% above the national average.

Also, information published on PayScale reveals that the average salary for an application security engineer is $97,684.

It implies that the average salary for an application security engineer can be higher or lower depending on the location.

Conclusion

To hire someone for the application security engineer position, recruiters need to publish the job description for interested individuals to respond to.

To make a perfect description of the application security engineer job for their organizations, employers can apply the job description sample above.

The information contained in this post is also useful to individuals who are interested in getting into the application security engineering career to be fully knowledgeable about the work they do.