Application Security Engineer

Vestwell is hiring an Application Security Engineer in Austin, TX (hybrid). In this role, you’ll help protect NestJS applications and identity integrations across the software development lifecycle, with a focus on authentication, authorization, and security testing. If you care about pragmatic controls, clear risk communication, and measurable improvements to engineering workflows, this position brings those priorities into day-to-day work.

Compensation: USD 140,000 - 150,000 per year. Minimum experience: 2 years.

What you will do

• Analyze NestJS and TypeScript applications for vulnerabilities across authentication, authorization, input validation, injection, session, API, business logic, and data protection.
• Apply and help refine secure development patterns for NestJS, including guards, interceptors, middleware, decorators, validation, error handling, logging, configuration, and dependency management.
• Support security for OIDC integrations and identity platform capabilities in two modes:
  • As an identity provider (IdP): authorization, token, user-info, discovery, key-set, and logout endpoints.
  • As a relying party (RP): client registration, redirect handling, authorization-code flows, token exchange, session establishment, and logout.
• Review OAuth 2.0 and OpenID Connect flows, including authorization code with PKCE, refresh tokens, client authentication, scopes, consent, state, nonce, redirect URI validation, and token lifetimes (with senior guidance for more complex cases).
• Help implement and maintain authorization models using RBAC and, where appropriate, claims-based or policy-based access control.
• Review access-control boundaries across services, APIs, tenants, users, roles, permissions, and administrative functions.
• Participate in threat modeling, security design reviews, architecture reviews, and secure code reviews.
• Contribute to security requirements, reusable libraries, reference implementations, and developer guidance that reduce recurring risk.
• Support security testing and detection efforts, including SAST, DAST, software composition analysis, secret scanning, API testing, dependency monitoring, and targeted security testing.
• Work with engineering teams to remediate vulnerabilities, prioritize findings by exploitability and business impact, and verify fixes.
• Monitor application and identity security signals, support incident investigations, and help maintain playbooks for account takeover, token compromise, authorization bypass, credential abuse, and related events.
• Maintain security documentation, standards, risk exceptions, and audit/customer assurance evidence.
• Stay current on application security, identity, OAuth/OIDC, browser security, API security, cloud security, and emerging attack techniques.

What you will bring

• 2-4 years of professional experience in application security, product security, software engineering, or a closely related discipline.
• Experience securing Node.js and TypeScript applications; familiarity with NestJS is a strong plus.
• Working knowledge of OAuth 2.0 and OpenID Connect, including common implementation pitfalls.
• Exposure to IdP and/or RP implementations, integrations, or security assessments.
• Solid understanding of authentication and authorization, including RBAC, least privilege, claims, scopes, permissions, sessions, and tokens.
• Ability to review code across APIs, web applications, and background jobs, with support from senior engineers for more complex architectural or distributed-systems topics.
• Familiarity with web and API security risks including OWASP Top 10, OWASP API Security Top 10, broken access control, SSRF, injection, XSS, CSRF, insecure deserialization, and misconfiguration.
• Basic understanding of secure token handling, including JWT validation, JWKS, signing algorithms, and token storage considerations.
• Some experience with CI/CD and developer workflows, or willingness to integrate security with minimal friction.
• Good communication skills to explain security findings and risk to technical teammates.
• A pragmatic, collaborative approach: eager to learn, ask good questions, and work with more senior engineers to propose and implement proportional controls.

Tools and technologies you may work with

• NestJS, TypeScript, Node.js
• OAuth 2.0, OpenID Connect (OIDC), PKCE, JWT, JWKS
• RBAC
• SAST, DAST, software composition analysis, secret scanning, API testing, dependency monitoring
• Auth0, Okta, Keycloak, Cognito, Azure AD/Entra ID
• Burp Suite, Semgrep, CodeQL, Snyk, Dependabot, OWASP ZAP, OWASP ASVS, NIST SSDF
• SAML, API gateways, microservices, event-driven systems, containers, infrastructure as code, secrets management, cloud IAM basics

Benefits

• Comprehensive health benefits
• Generous time off
• Employee Wellbeing Committee
• 401(k) plan

Hybrid work: Vestwell’s hybrid model offers flexibility while providing access to collaborative offices in Midtown Manhattan, Austin, King of Prussia, and Scottsdale.

Interview process

• The process begins with 1-2 introductory conversations.
• It varies by role and typically includes a skills or experience-based assessment such as a coding interview, portfolio review, or deeper discussion of relevant experience.
• Next, candidates participate in a virtual or in-person interview panel.
• Before an offer, Vestwell completes a reference check with a current or former manager and a peer.
• Throughout the process, the team emphasizes transparency, clear communication, and minimizing surprises.