Torchora
Back to Home

Key Responsibilities and Required Skills for Application Security Developer

💰 $95,000 - $160,000

Application SecurityCybersecuritySecure SoftwareDevSecOps

🎯 Role Definition

As an Application Security Developer, you will embed security deeply into our software lifecycle, safeguarding our applications from internal and external threats. You will collaborate with development, security and operations teams to design, build and implement secure coding practices, automated security controls and robust, scalable architectures. Your mission is to ensure applications are resilient by default, compliant with standards, and continuously monitored for evolving vulnerabilities and risks.

📈 Career Progression

Typical Career Path

Entry Point From:

  • Software Developer with interest in security
  • Application Security Engineer
  • Secure Development Practitioner

Advancement To:

  • Senior Application Security Developer / Lead AppSec Developer
  • Application Security Architect / Security Solutions Architect
  • Director of Application Security / Head of Secure Software Engineering

Lateral Moves:

  • DevSecOps Engineer
  • Product Security Engineer
  • Threat & Vulnerability Researcher

Core Responsibilities

Primary Functions

  1. Design and implement secure software components and frameworks within application environments, integrating encryption, authentication and authorization mechanisms.
  2. Conduct threat modelling, design‑reviews and architecture risk assessments at the outset of projects to identify vulnerabilities and shape secure system designs.
  3. Lead code reviews, static application security testing (SAST), dynamic testing (DAST) and manual security audits to discover, classify and remediate security defects.
  4. Collaborate cross‑functionally with development, QA, operations and product teams to integrate security checks into CI/CD pipelines, including automating scans, policy enforcement and remediation workflows.
  5. Develop and maintain security tooling, libraries and automation scripts (for example in Python, Java, C#) that accelerate secure development practices and thwart common attack vectors.
  6. Monitor and respond to application security incidents including root‑cause analysis, vulnerability triage, patching and documentation of lessons learned.
  7. Establish and enforce secure coding standards, best practices and internal guidelines aligned to frameworks such as OWASP Top 10, ISO 27001 and NIST SP 800‑53.
  8. Support and advise product and platform teams on secure design of web, mobile and cloud applications, including microservices, APIs, containers and cloud‑native components.
  9. Validate third‑party software, open‑source libraries and external dependencies for security compliance, perform supply‑chain analysis and manage vulnerability disclosures.
  10. Build and maintain dashboards, metrics and reporting around application security posture, coverage of scans, vulnerability backlog and remediation effectiveness.
  11. Architect and implement secure API gateways, authentication flows (OAuth2, JWT, SAML) and identity management integrations aligned with organisation’s access control strategy.
  12. Conduct penetration testing, manual review, red‑team engagements or simulation exercises to explore advanced threat scenarios and validate real‑world resilience.
  13. Provide mentoring, training and enablement for developer teams around secure development lifecycle (SDLC), secure design patterns, threat awareness and remediation tactics.
  14. Manage or contribute to the selection, deployment and lifecycle of application security tools, including SAST, DAST, IAST, dependency scanning, runtime application protection (RASP) and threat‑intelligence platforms.
  15. Ensure application platforms are configured for secure deployment: container hardening, orchestration security (Kubernetes, Docker), infrastructure as code (IaC) security, cloud mis‑configuration prevention.
  16. Participate in incident response planning and collaborate with security operations to integrate application telemetry, log monitoring, alerting, forensic readiness and continuous improvement of safeguards.
  17. Review and influence release pipelines, change management processes and deployment models to ensure application releases comply with security gates, rollback mechanisms and audit trails.
  18. Drive continuous improvement in security processes, promote automation of routine security tasks, eliminate manual bottlenecks and bolster operational scalability of the AppSec program.
  19. Assist with regulatory, industry and compliance audits (such as GDPR, PCI‑DSS, HIPAA) by providing application‑security evidence, documentation and remediation status to stakeholders.
  20. Maintain an up‑to‑date awareness of cyber‑threat landscape, emerging vulnerabilities, exploit techniques, zero‑day events and evolving standards — and influence roadmap recommendations accordingly.

Secondary Functions

  • Support ad‑hoc security development tasks, proof‑of‑concepts and pilot initiatives to explore emerging tools and methods in AppSec.
  • Contribute to the organisation’s security strategy and roadmap by recommending tools, architectures, metrics or process enhancements.
  • Collaborate with business units to translate application‑security requirements into engineering tasks, user stories and backlog items.
  • Participate in agile ceremonies (sprint planning, retrospectives, backlog grooming) in the secure‑software engineering team to align deliverables with risk mitigation priorities.

Required Skills & Competencies

Hard Skills (Technical)

  • Proficiency in programming languages such as Java, C#, Python, JavaScript or Go, and ability to review and secure codebases.
  • Deep understanding of secure coding practices, web application security (XSS, SQLi, CSRF), API security, and authentication/authorization protocols.
  • Experience with SAST, DAST, IAST tools and techniques, including automated integration into CI/CD pipelines.
  • Familiarity with threat modelling, architecture risk assessments and secure design reviews in SDLC environments.
  • Knowledge of cloud platforms (AWS, Azure, GCP), containerization (Docker, Kubernetes), infrastructure‑as‑code (Terraform, Ansible) and hardening practices.
  • Solid experience integrating security tooling, automating security workflows, scripting (Bash, PowerShell, Python) and building developer‑friendly security‑automation assets.
  • Understanding of compliance frameworks, auditing requirements, supply‑chain risk and third‑party/security‑dependency assessment.
  • Skilled in monitoring, logging, incident response tooling, vulnerability triage, remediation workflows and post‑incident analysis.
  • Experience securing APIs, microservices, single‑page applications or mobile applications, and knowledge of mobile/web security.
  • Ability to write security documentation, deliver training or awareness‑materials, mentor peers and influence secure‑software culture.

Soft Skills

  • Excellent analytical and problem‑solving mindset, comfortable navigating complex software ecosystems and identifying subtle security threats.
  • Strong communication and stakeholder‑management skills, able to translate technical risk into business impact and influence engineering teams.
  • Detail‑oriented and quality‑driven, committed to high‑assurance, secure‑by‑default application design and delivery.
  • Ability to prioritise, multitask and work under pressure in a fast‑paced, agile development environment.
  • Collaborative team‑player with mentoring mindset, eager to share knowledge, promote secure practices and elevate team capability.
  • Adaptive mindset, continuous learner keeping pace with evolving threat‑landscape, security tools and development paradigms.
  • Business‑oriented: able to align security outcomes with organisational goals, user‑experience, performance and time‑to‑market.

Education & Experience

Educational Background

Minimum Education:
Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, Information Security or a related field.
Preferred Education:
Master’s degree or professional certification in cybersecurity (e.g., CISSP, CSSLP, CEH) or secure‑software engineering.
Relevant Fields of Study:

  • Computer Science
  • Software or Systems Engineering
  • Information Security / Cybersecurity
  • Information Systems

Experience Requirements

Typical Experience Range:
3‑5 years of experience in application security, secure software development or related roles.
Preferred:
5+ years of experience developing security solutions in enterprise environments, leading app‑security initiatives, mentoring developers and influencing secure‑software lifecycles.

Explore More Careers