VP, Product Management — API and AI Security

Harness is a high-growth company that is disrupting the software delivery market. Our mission is to enable the 30 million software developers in the world to deliver code to their users reliably, efficiently, securely and quickly, increasing customers’ pace of innovation while improving the developer experience. We offer solutions for every step of the software delivery lifecycle to build, test, secure, deploy and manage reliability, feature flags and cloud costs. The Harness Software Delivery Platform includes modules for CI, CD, Cloud Cost Management, Feature Flags, Service Reliability Management, Security Testing Orchestration, Chaos Engineering, Software Engineering Insights and continues to expand at an incredibly fast pace.

Harness is led by technologist and entrepreneur Jyoti Bansal, who founded AppDynamics and sold it to Cisco for $3.7B. We’re backed with $425M in venture financing from top-tier VC and strategic firms, including J.P. Morgan, Capital One Ventures, Citi Ventures, ServiceNow, Splunk Ventures, Norwest Venture Partners, Adage Capital Partners, Balyasny Asset Management, Gaingels, Harmonic Growth Partners, Menlo Ventures, IVP, Unusual Ventures, GV (formerly Google Ventures), Alkeon Capital, Battery Ventures, Sorenson Capital, Thomvest Ventures and Silicon Valley Bank.

Position Summary

Harness is looking for an exceptional, strategic, and technically deep VP of Product Management to lead our API and AI Security product portfolio. In this role, you will define the vision, strategy, and roadmap for how Harness secures modern, distributed applications—from code to production—through intelligent, developer-centric API security solutions.

You will partner closely with Engineering, Security, GTM, and Executive leadership to build category-defining capabilities that help engineering teams discover, protect, and remediate API risks at scale. This is a high-impact leadership role that requires equal parts product vision, technical fluency, and the ability to ship fast in a competitive, fast-evolving domain

About the role

Product Strategy & Leadership

• Own and articulate the long-term vision and strategy for Harness’ API and AI Security products, aligning with the company’s broader DevSecOps platform strategy.

• Lead and mentor a team of Product Managers across multiple product workstreams.

• Evaluate market shifts, emerging threats, regulatory changes, and customer needs to influence product direction.

• Drive prioritization and product investments across API discovery, runtime protection, risk scoring, posture management, and remediation workflows.

Execution & Roadmap Ownership

• Build and execute a product roadmap that balances innovation with operational excellence and customer outcomes.

• Partner with Engineering to deliver high-quality, scalable, and performant API security features.

• Define clear KPIs, success metrics, and data-driven signals that guide product decisions.

• Ensure timely, iterative delivery with tight feedback loops with customers and field teams.

Customer, Market, and Competitive Insight

• Stay deeply connected to customers—security leaders, platform teams, and developers—to understand evolving API challenges in cloud-native environments.

• Assess competitive landscapes (WAF, RASP, API gateways, API posture management, runtime security tools) and identify areas of differentiation for Harness.

• Work with Design and User Research to ensure a frictionless, developer-first experience.

Go-to-Market Partnership

• Partner closely with Sales, Marketing, Customer Success, and Field Security to define packaging, pricing, and GTM motions.

• Equip field teams with product enablement, competitive positioning, and use-case-based storytelling.

• Support key customer conversations, executive briefings, and industry events as a thought leader in API security.

Cross-Functional Collaboration

• Work across all Harness product lines to ensure consistent security workflows across CI/CD, Feature Flags, SRE/Observability, and IDP products.

• Build connective tissue between engineering, security engineering, platform teams, and GTM organizations.

• Foster a culture of high ownership, customer obsession, and continuous improvement.

About you

• 10+ years of product management experience, with at least 5+ years in a security, API, cloud, or developer-tooling environment.

• Clear track record of building and shipping security or platform products used by developers or security engineering teams.

• Deep understanding of modern API architectures (REST, GraphQL, gRPC), service mesh, cloud-native infrastructure, and common vulnerabilities (OWASP API Top 10).

• Strong knowledge of the API security ecosystem (API gateways, WAF, RASP, CNAPP, WAAP, runtime security tools).

• Exceptional leadership skills with experience managing and growing product teams.

• Ability to translate complex technical concepts for executives, customers, and cross-functional audiences.

• Strong analytical and problem-solving skills with a bias for data-driven decision making.

• Comfortable in high-growth, fast-moving startup environments; thrives in ambiguity and creates clarity.

• Bonus: experience in DevOps, CI/CD, cloud orchestration, or building developer-first products.

Work Location

• Hybrid from Mountain View, CA

What you will have at Harness

• Competitive salary

• Comprehensive healthcare benefits

• Flexible Spending Account (FSA)

• Flexible work schedule

• Employee Assistance Program (EAP)

• Flexible Time Off and Parental Leave

• Monthly, quarterly, and annual social and team building events

• Monthly internet reimbursement

Pay transparency
$300,000—$330,000 USD

Harness in the news:

• Harness AI Tackles Software Development’s Real Bottleneck

• After 'Vibe Coding' Comes 'Vibe Testing' (Almost)

• Startup Within a Startup: Empowering Intrapreneurs for Scalable Innovation - Jyoti Bansal (Harness)

• Jyoti Bansal, Harness | theCUBEd Awards

• Eight years after selling AppDynamics to Cisco, Jyoti Bansal is pursuing an unusual merger

• Harness snags Split.io, as it goes all in on feature flags and experiments

• Exclusive: Jyoti Bansal-led Harness has raised $150 million in debt financing

All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex or national origin.

Note on Fraudulent Recruiting/Offers

We have become aware that there may be fraudulent recruiting attempts being made by people posing as representatives of Harness. These scams may involve fake job postings, unsolicited emails, or messages claiming to be from our recruiters or hiring managers.

Please note, we do not ask for sensitive or financial information via chat, text, or social media, and any email communications will come from the domain @harness.io. Additionally, Harness will never ask for any payment, fee to be paid, or purchases to be made by a job applicant. All applicants are encouraged to apply directly to our open jobs via our website. Interviews are generally conducted via Zoom video conference unless the candidate requests other accommodations.

If you believe that you have been the target of an interview/offer scam by someone posing as a representative of Harness, please do not provide any personal or financial information and contact us immediately at [email protected]. You can also find additional information about this type of scam and report any fraudulent employment offers via the Federal Trade Commission’s website (https://consumer.ftc.gov/articles/job-scams), or you can contact your local law enforcement agency.