VP, Information Security in London

At Algolia, we are proud to be a pioneer and market leader in AI Search, empowering 17,000+ businesses to deliver blazing-fast, predictive search and browse experiences at internet scale. Every week, we power over 30 billion search requests.

This strong foundation enables us to keep investing in our market-leading platform and serving incredible customers like Under Armour, PetSmart, Stripe, Gymshark, and Walgreens. Algolia is a leading AI Search platform, serving more than 18,000 customers in more than 150 countries, in 80 languages.

As we scale toward our vision to lead in AI-powered product discovery, enterprise readiness, and platform extensibility, the security and trust of our customers, partners, and internal teams is paramount.

This role will define and lead Algolia's global security strategy, champion a proactive security culture, and ensure we stay ahead of evolving threats across our systems, operations, and products.

Your Role Will Consist Of:

• Serve as Algolia's most senior authority on information security and cyber risk, owning the vision, strategy, execution, and continuous improvement of our company-wide security program.
• Advise the CEO and Executive Leadership Team (ELT) directly, translating complex technical risks into pragmatic, clear business impacts and choices.
• Partner across Engineering, Product, Legal, IT, and GTM leadership to design, implement, and enforce policies, controls, and procedures that safeguard our infrastructure, data, and applications.
• Enable business growth through security by informing the ELT in plain English and crafting well-engineered, pragmatic, business-first, risk-informed solutions.
• Lead incident response and resilience, ensuring Algolia is prepared for and can withstand cyber threats, data breaches, and systemic risks across the business.
• Inculcate and embed a security-first mindset across the company.
• Shape and lead the security posture of AI initiatives by establishing clear, adaptable processes to assess threats, model risk, ensure policy alignment.
• Recruit, inspire, and lead a globally distributed security organisation.
• Lead continuous improvement programs for the Information Security organisation's training, skills development, and career progression.
• Represent Algolia externally with enterprise customers, regulators, auditors, industry groups, and at conferences.
• Create force multipliers by establishing objective, well-shared security data, intelligence, and knowledge.
• Define and deliver measurable success by ensuring that within the first year, Algolia demonstrates clear improvements in resilience.

You Might Be a Fit If You Have:

• A blunt, clear, and high-integrity communication style and board-level communication skills.
• A strong track record of building and scaling security programs in high-growth, cloud-native tech environments.
• Experience leading security in multi-cloud-native, SaaS, or API-first environments.
• A leadership style that emphasises accountability, risk prevention and mitigation, and long-term resilience.
• Proven track record of building security culture across engineering, product, sales, and finance teams.
• Strong knowledge of DevSecOps practices, secure software development, and modern CI/CD pipelines.
• Hands-on experience with incident response and crisis management in global settings.
• Vision for AI governance and ethical risk management.
• Familiarity with threat modelling for AI systems.
• Experience building security culture in engineering-heavy organisations.
• Experience supporting international teams and operations across multiple regions.
• Experience leading Security teams across disciplines.
• A strong background in data privacy and compliance frameworks.
• The ability to lead through ambiguity and scale processes for a global, remote-first organisation.
• Engagement in security communities, open-source contributions, or standards bodies.
• A collaborative, mission-driven mindset aligned with Algolia's values.

Nice To Have:

• Familiarity with search infrastructure, distributed systems, or high-scale platforms.
• Exposure to regulatory engagement and shaping security programs to meet evolving global standards.
• Multilingual, preferably French, Romanian.
• Strong external presence — e.g., public speaking, industry participation, or community contributions.
• Experience interfacing directly with large enterprise customers or regulators.
• Experience reporting to a CEO.

Flexible Workplace Strategy:

Algolia's flexible workplace model is designed to empower all Algolians to fulfil our mission to power search and discovery with ease. We place an emphasis on an individual's impact, contribution, and output, over their physical location.

We have a global presence with offices in Paris, NYC, London, Sydney and Bucharest, however we also offer many of our team members the option to work remotely either as fully remote or hybrid-remote employees.

WE'RE LOOKING FOR SOMEONE WHO CAN LIVE OUR VALUES:

• GRIT – Problem-solving and perseverance capability in an ever-changing and growing environment.
• TRUST – Willingness to trust our co-workers and to take ownership.
• CANDOR – Ability to receive and give constructive feedback.
• CARE – Genuine care about other team members, our clients and the decisions we make in the company.
• HUMILITY – Aptitude for learning from others, putting ego aside.

We're looking for talented, passionate people to help build the world's best search and discovery technology. We value autonomy, diversity, and collaboration. We're committed to creating an inclusive workplace where everyone is respected and supported.

IMPORTANT NOTICE FOR CANDIDATES – Recruitment Fraud Notice:

Our open positions may appear on third-party job boards, but the best way to apply safely is directly through our careers page. All genuine communication from Algolia will come from an @algolia.com email address.

READY TO APPLY? If you share our values and our enthusiasm for building the world's best search & discovery technology, we'd love to review your application!