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Key Responsibilities and Required Skills for Web Security Consultant

💰 $ - $

SecurityApplication SecurityConsultingDevSecOps

🎯 Role Definition

A Web Security Consultant is a client-facing security professional who assesses, tests, and improves the security posture of web applications, APIs, and related infrastructure. This role combines hands-on technical testing (manual and automated), secure design and architecture review, developer enablement, and strategic advisory to reduce risk, remediate vulnerabilities, and embed application security into the SDLC. Typical engagements include web penetration tests, API security assessments, threat modeling, secure code review, cloud-native application reviews, and building repeatable security processes and automation.

📈 Career Progression

Typical Career Path

Entry Point From:

  • Application Security Engineer / Application Security Analyst
  • Penetration Tester / Ethical Hacker
  • Security Analyst with web or cloud focus
  • Senior Software Engineer with security specialization

Advancement To:

  • Senior Web Security Consultant / Principal Application Security Consultant
  • Head of Application Security / Director of Application Security
  • Security Architect / Principal Security Engineer
  • CISO (for strong leadership track)

Lateral Moves:

  • DevSecOps Engineer
  • Cloud Security Engineer
  • Security Researcher / Threat Analyst
  • Secure Code Review Lead / Developer Security Advocate

Core Responsibilities

Primary Functions

  • Lead and execute comprehensive web application penetration tests across modern tech stacks, producing clear evidence-based findings, risk ratings, exploit proof-of-concept, and prioritized remediation guidance tailored for development teams and executives.
  • Conduct deep API security assessments including authentication and authorization flows, business logic abuse, excessive data exposure, rate limiting, and testing for injection and deserialization vulnerabilities across REST, GraphQL, and gRPC interfaces.
  • Perform secure design and architecture reviews for web and microservice-based applications, documenting threat models, attack surface analyses, and recommended security controls to improve resilience and meet compliance objectives.
  • Execute manual source code reviews and static analysis of backend and frontend repositories to identify insecure coding patterns, cryptographic misuse, injection risks, insecure deserialization, and insecure third-party library usage with clear remediation steps.
  • Configure, run, and tune SAST, DAST, IAST, and SCA tools (e.g., Veracode, Checkmarx, SonarQube, Snyk, OWASP ZAP, Burp Suite) across CI/CD pipelines and interpret results to reduce false positives and optimize developer workflow.
  • Design and implement repeatable security testing programs integrated into CI/CD (GitHub Actions, GitLab CI, Jenkins, Azure DevOps), automating scans, gating releases, and generating actionable tickets for development teams.
  • Lead authentication and session management reviews, testing for broken authentication, insecure token handling, CSRF, OAuth/OIDC misconfigurations, SSO flows, and multi-factor authentication weaknesses.
  • Assess cloud-native web deployments (AWS, Azure, GCP) for misconfigurations, insecure IAM roles, insecure S3/GCS/Blob storage, serverless function risks, and container/Kubernetes weaknesses affecting web workloads.
  • Conduct threat modeling workshops with product and engineering teams to identify high-value assets, enumerate threat agents, prioritize risks, and produce mitigation roadmaps aligned with business objectives.
  • Triage, validate, and enrich automated vulnerability findings from scanners and bug bounty reports; prioritize remediation using contextual business impact and exploitability criteria and track remediation through to closure.
  • Provide actionable remediation guidance and pull-request level fixes for developers, including secure code examples, configuration changes, and defensive controls to remove or mitigate vulnerabilities efficiently.
  • Develop and maintain playbooks and runbooks for common web vulnerabilities (XSS, SQLi, SSRF, IDOR), including detection patterns, test cases, remediation checklists, and regression test guidance for QA.
  • Conduct red-team style assessments and collaborate with internal incident response teams to validate detection capability, exercise logs/alerts, and improve monitoring (SIEM) for web threats and API abuse.
  • Lead client-facing discovery calls, scoping workshops, and technical interviews to define assessment scope, objectives, constraints, and deliverable formats; translate findings into business risk terms for executive stakeholders.
  • Produce polished, executive and technical reporting — including high-level risk summaries, detailed technical appendices, step-by-step repros, CVSS/CWE mappings, and recommended timelines for remediation and verification testing.
  • Mentor junior consultants and developers on secure coding practices and vulnerability remediation; deliver targeted training sessions, secure coding clinics, and onboarding materials to lift organizational capabilities.
  • Tune and manage web application firewalls (WAF) and runtime protection (RASP) configurations to reduce exploitation risk while minimizing false positives and preserving application availability.
  • Evaluate, pilot, and recommend security tools and vendor solutions (WAFs, SCA, IAST, CSP reporting, secrets management) aligned to client needs, total cost of ownership, and integration complexity with existing pipelines.
  • Support vulnerability management and prioritization processes by mapping web vulnerabilities to business-critical assets, regulatory requirements (PCI DSS, SOC 2, GDPR), and exposure windows to inform patching and mitigation SLAs.
  • Run secure build and release reviews to prevent credential exposure, secrets in source control, and insecure artifact distribution; recommend secrets management, code-signing, and artifact hygiene best practices.
  • Provide on-call consultation and quick-response advisory for urgent web security incidents, including rapid triage, containment recommendations, and short-term mitigations to reduce immediate risk.
  • Develop and deliver client-tailored application security roadmaps that include quick wins, medium-term process changes (secure SDLC), and long-term strategic investments to improve secure development maturity.
  • Collaborate with product management to assess security implications of new features (e.g., SSO, payments, third-party integrations) and recommend design adjustments before implementation to avoid rework.
  • Maintain an up-to-date understanding of web threats, CVEs, exploitation trends, and emerging technologies (WebAssembly, SPA frameworks, edge computing) to ensure assessments remain relevant and forward-looking.

Secondary Functions

  • Contribute to proposal writing, SOW development, and pricing estimations for web security engagements; provide technical input for sales and pre-sales activities.
  • Build and maintain internal knowledge base content — reusable test cases, checklists, reporting templates, and remediation playbooks to accelerate delivery and consistency.
  • Participate in open-source and professional communities, publish blog posts or thought leadership on web security topics, and represent the organization at conferences and customer workshops.
  • Assist in evaluating and integrating new security tool pilots and proof-of-concepts into the consultant toolkit; measure effectiveness and create adoption plans.
  • Provide ongoing advisory and retest services, validating remediation efforts and generating regression test reports and sign-off documentation.
  • Help develop training curricula and hands-on labs for developer enablement programs—covering secure frameworks, input validation, secure authentication, and dependency hygiene.
  • Support security governance efforts by contributing to policy updates, standards for secure coding, and security requirements for procurement of third-party services.
  • Mentor and participate in the technical hiring process for web security roles; conduct technical interviews and provide feedback on candidate fit.
  • Produce internal metrics and KPIs for the application security program (remediation times, recurring vulnerabilities, scan coverage) and present program health to leadership.
  • Provide technical support to bug bounty programs, triaging submissions, verifying vulnerabilities, and coordinating bounty payouts and disclosure where applicable.

Required Skills & Competencies

Hard Skills (Technical)

  • Deep practical experience with web application penetration testing methodologies and tools (Burp Suite Pro, OWASP ZAP, Chrome DevTools, Fiddler) and manual testing techniques.
  • Proven ability to test for and remediate OWASP Top 10 risks (Injection, Broken Authentication, Sensitive Data Exposure, XXE, Broken Access Control, SSRF, etc.).
  • Experience with API security testing for REST, GraphQL, SOAP, and experience identifying mass-assignment, IDOR/ACL bypass, insecure direct object references, and JSON/XML parsing issues.
  • Knowledge of SAST, DAST, IAST, and SCA tools (e.g., Checkmarx, Veracode, SonarQube, Snyk) and experience integrating these into CI/CD pipelines.
  • Strong secure code review skills in languages and frameworks commonly used for web apps (Java, JavaScript/Node.js, Python, Ruby, .NET, Go) and ability to provide fix-level guidance.
  • Familiarity with cloud platform security for web workloads (AWS, Azure, GCP), including IAM, serverless security, container registries, and cloud-native logging and monitoring.
  • Container and Kubernetes security knowledge: image hardening, admission controllers, network policies, secure pod runtime, and cluster configuration review.
  • Solid scripting and automation skills (Python, Bash, PowerShell) to build custom scanners, parsers, and automation for repetitive security tasks and CI/CD integration.
  • Experience with authentication/authorization mechanisms: OAuth2, OpenID Connect, SAML, JWT validity checks, and common SSO vulnerabilities and mitigations.
  • Hands-on experience with vulnerability management, CVSS, CWE mapping, and the ability to prioritize fixes based on exploitability and business impact.
  • Familiarity with runtime protection and perimeter controls: WAF tuning, RASP, CDN edge security, and bot management strategies.
  • Knowledge of compliance frameworks and regulatory requirements affecting web apps (PCI DSS, GDPR, SOC 2, NIST, ISO 27001) and how they map to application controls.
  • Penetration testing toolset knowledge (Nmap, Nessus, Metasploit, SQLMap) and experience producing reproducible exploit steps for client remediation validation.
  • Experience with logging, observability, and detection engineering for web threats; ability to recommend and validate SIEM/KPI rules for web attack detection.
  • Ability to design and run threat modeling exercises (STRIDE, PASTA) and translate results into prioritized control recommendations.

Soft Skills

  • Excellent verbal and written communication, able to explain complex technical findings to non-technical stakeholders and craft executive summaries.
  • Client-facing consulting presence: able to lead workshops, status calls, and align security recommendations with business priorities.
  • Strong analytical and problem-solving skills with a pragmatic, risk-based approach to recommend prioritized, feasible mitigations.
  • Teaching and mentoring aptitude: able to run secure coding clinics, developer trainings, and foster security-first mindset among engineers.
  • Time management and project management skills to manage multiple concurrent engagements, deliverables, and deadlines with quality.
  • Collaborative team player who works across engineering, product, and operations teams to implement security changes effectively.
  • Attention to detail and persistence to reproduce, validate, and re-test complex issues until fully remediated.
  • Ethical conduct and professional discretion when handling sensitive client systems, data, and vulnerability disclosure.

Education & Experience

Educational Background

Minimum Education:

  • Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Information Security, Software Engineering, or equivalent practical experience.

Preferred Education:

  • Master’s degree in Cybersecurity, Information Assurance, or related field (preferred but not required).
  • Relevant professional certifications (OSCP, OSWE, CISSP, GIAC Web Application Penetration Tester (GWAPT), CEH, GWEB).

Relevant Fields of Study:

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

Experience Requirements

Typical Experience Range: 3 – 7+ years in application/web security, penetration testing, or related consulting roles.

Preferred: 5+ years of hands-on experience performing web application assessments, secure code review, and delivering client-facing security advisory services; demonstrable experience integrating security tools in CI/CD and cloud-native environments.

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