Assistant CTO for Security & Infrastructure / CISO

This posting will be open until filled. Candidates are encouraged to submit their application by March 18, 2025, to be considered in the initial screening process.

The Seattle Information Technology Department seeks an exceptional executive to serve as the Assistant Chief Technology Officer (CTO) for Security and Infrastructure / Chief Information Security Officer (CISO).

About our City and Team

The City of Seattle is creating the civic technology foundations that help our community thrive through our One Seattle vision and initiatives.

As the largest city in the Pacific Northwest and 17th in the nation, the City provides a large array of services and infrastructure. With a total budget of over $8 billion and more than 13,400 employees, we serve 780,000 residents and tens of thousands of businesses across 83 square miles. Indeed, we have 800,000 reasons to excel every day.

We are proud that Seattle is a hub of innovation and culture. The City aspires to reflect that spirit in our municipal services. For our Seattle Information Technology (IT) team, we play a crucial role in enabling smart, equitable, and responsive services for City employees, Seattle residents, and local businesses. We work to unleash our people and community through technology solutions, infrastructure, and well-executed projects that are secure and resilient. We invest in open access to City information, privacy and responsible technology use, digital access, collaboration, customer service, and strategic planning. We are a leader in local government progress towards responsible AI adoption. These are Seattle’s values in action.

Our work is powered by people who share a mission of public good and care about being great in their professional fields together. We foster a culture of collaboration, continuous growth, shared high standards, and a flexible and empowering workplace for all team members.

Seattle IT's mission: We put powerful information and tools in the hands of people to unleash brilliance in service to our community. You can see Seattle IT’s direction here: ITStrategicPlan2025-2027. 

Join us in making Seattle as connected and innovative as the community we serve

The Security and Infrastructure Division is at the start of new strategic directions and is positioning closer to the missions of our City's departments. This leader will work across the organization to refine our City's portfolio of technologies to a leaner and more modern core; making gains in project success rates, reliability, and cost of services; and reinvesting in the engagement and growth of our teams. The next three years for IT will focus on supporting the City’s most transformative efforts towards One Seattle and goals for the community’s needs in Public Safety, Housing and Homelessness, Health and responding to the nation’s addiction crisis, and Thriving Seattle as we revitalize the local economy.

The S&I division consists of about 150 employees providing all enterprise cybersecurity, service excellence, systems, data/voice/video network, core communications, and public safety radio services, as well as related strategy and delivery for the City. The division currently runs on a $70M operating and a $25M capital budget.

The division’s forward priorities focus on maintaining high system reliability, cybersecurity, and adapting systems and services to emerging demands. Active and planned initiatives will elevate operational effectiveness through tooling and processes, unifying the City on modern technologies, deployment and management frameworks, and costing models that will allow higher optimization with enterprise-wide visibility. This includes modernizing production systems and provisioning, ensuring infrastructure lifecycle management, and maintaining enabling security protocols. The team conducts architectural and security reviews for new systems, responds promptly to security incidents, and runs network, voice, and systems to high uptime and service continuity standards.

Strategic projects include refreshing cloud and data center operations, key infrastructure upgrades, and security business integration. The organization will refresh its digital architecture, privileged access management, and endpoint management in this roadmap horizon. Cybersecurity efforts of note include progression into AI and identified risk horizons, cyber exercises, and preparing for FIFA 2026 events. Additionally, IT modernization efforts span operating system direction, changes in enterprise application and integration builds, and infrastructure administration models. The division's goals will be to strengthen security, enhance digital transformation, and align IT operations with superior City services.

The Assistant CTO for Security and Infrastructure reports directly to the City Chief Technology Officer and leads the City’s cybersecurity, systems, and telecommunications services. The City believes in closely aligning security with technology operations. Hence, this Assistant CTO also serves as the City’s CISO, works with the CTO and leaders citywide to incorporate security and resilience in City decisions every day, and administers the City’s cybersecurity risk boards. The Assistant CTO must be outstanding at driving and providing operational oversight for security and risk management strategies, ensuring the reliability and security of enterprise infrastructure, and providing executive-level guidance on emerging threats, regulatory compliance, and risk assessments. They translate methodologies across a large, complicated organization, working well with many partners and interests.

Leaders in Seattle IT play a meaningful role in modeling how we engage across departments to deliver exceptional technology services while solving world-class challenges. Our technology executives must be humble and act with integrity. They direct delivery of strong services, partner to innovate new approaches, and lead direction across multi-departmental initiatives. We look for leaders who inspire team members and nurture a culture that is collaborative, accountable, and dedicated to making positive impact. Indeed, we want leaders and teammates energized by the ambitious goals reflected in City’s Budget and 2025-2027 IT Strategic Plan for the community.

For these reasons, Seattle’s IT leaders operate in a player-coach model—individuals who can shape technical work, support team members in implementing that direction, and working with both technology and partners while through to delivery of outcomes prioritized by the organization. When Seattle IT succeeds, it enhances City services, supports residents and businesses, and strengthens our community!

Cybersecurity partners with departments to drive security initiatives and address business technology challenges. We will remain relentless in our focus on security, with continuous vulnerability scanning, risk-based security assessments, rapid zero-day remediation, firewall updates, and compliance with benchmarks and regulatory audits. This requires skill with and knowledge of NIST CSF, RMF, and other industry standards and practices. Additionally, efforts are underway to enhance infrastructure monitoring, optimize licensing and maintenance, and transition to more enabling security frameworks, intelligent tools, and enhanced identity and access management.

• Partner with executive, management, and operational stakeholders to define business needs, work plans, and priorities.
• Translate needs effectively into technology solutions that provide the responsive services required by our staffs, residents, and businesses.
• Develop and implement a comprehensive infrastructure and hardware portfolio strategy, ensuring alignment with organizational goals and needs. Allocate staff effectively in support of strategies, priorities, and work plans. Anticipate new needs with expert view of the needs of the organization.
• Provide executive sponsorship for major projects and initiatives to deliver success.
• Ensure adherence to secure development and system administration practices, using current methodologies.
• Lead enterprise-wide infrastructure initiatives related to security, systems, telecommunications, and service coordination to meet operational requirements and strategic outcomes.
• Direct and lead multiple teams by establishing division goals and performance standards, conducting regular evaluations of the staff members' performance, and coaching staff members on performance and career development consistent with the departmental mission and expectations.
• Proactively set solution directions and plan system roadmaps that benefit City ability to provide services in the most friendly, efficient, and cost-effective manner.
• Maintain and grow skills and competencies of team members based on the needs of the City and Seattle IT, to support all work initiatives.
• Direct the allocation of resources to achieve timely outcomes and measurable goals within budget. Recommend IT spending and collaborate in resource planning processes to ensure high-quality services at the lowest cost to the organization.

Minimum Qualifications

NOTE: Equivalent combinations of education and experience will be considered for the required qualifications.

• Any combination equivalent to successful completion of advanced course work from an accredited college or university in business, public administration, or related field.
• A minimum of six (6) years of increasingly responsible experience in senior-level management and technical work in a public or private agency demonstrating:
  • Experience managing a work unit equivalent to a major division within a city operating department with at least 40 employees and/or contractors;
  • Direction of a budget of at least $5 million;
  • Oversight of programs and projects to successful outcomes consisting of ongoing support programs and significant project implementations;
  • Responsibility for policy development and administration; and
  • Accountability for staff hiring and development with a record of high performance.
• Must possess a valid driver’s license or provide evidence of equivalent mobility in order to travel to city facilities to deliver/install equipment statewide.

Desired Qualifications

• Master’s degree or equivalent experience in Cybersecurity, Information Systems, Business Administration, or a related field.
• Demonstrated expertise leading a complex portfolio of technology infrastructure systems supporting at least 1,000 staff and an external community impacting at least 100,000 clients, all to high reliability and customer satisfaction metrics.
• CISSP, CISM, CISA, CCSP, or equivalent professional certifications.
• Experience managing compliance within frameworks such as CJIS, HIPAA, PCI-DSS, and GDPR.
• Recent expertise evaluating and implementing emerging security technologies, such as Zero Trust architectures, AI-driven security analytics, and DevSecOps practices.
• Proficient in product and project management, with results showing long-term value increase, preferably including use of both agile and traditional approaches
• Strong personnel management skills, including staff development, coaching, evaluation, and hiring
• Applied knowledge of systems, networking, and cloud services
• Good communication, collaboration, and conflict resolution skills, as well as a high degree of emotional intelligence
• Implementation of change and release management processes and business architecture that yield a high degree of business alignment
• Experience working in government, higher education, or similarly regulated environments.
• Hands-on experience with cloud security architectures, governance, and compliance frameworks.
• Expertise leading incident response efforts and running cybersecurity crises.

Starting Salary or Target Salary for discretionary titles:

• The full salary range for this position is $159,147- $262,629 annually. The hiring salary for this position has been identified as up to $250,560 annually for qualifications closely matching the City's requirements.

Why work at the City of Seattle?

The City of Seattle recognizes everyone must play a role in ending institutional and structural racism. Our behavior shapes our workplace culture, reflects our personal commitments, and how we fearlessly share our view and encourage others to do the same. We seek employees who will engage in the Race and Social Justice Initiative by working to dismantle racist policies and procedures, unlearn the way things have always been done, and provide fair and accessible processes and services.

The City of Seattle offers a comprehensive benefits package including vacation, holiday, and sick leave as well as medical, dental, vision, life and long-term disability insurance for employees and their dependents. More information about employee benefits is available on the City's website at: https://www.seattle.gov/human-resources/benefits/employees-and-covered-family-members/most-employees-plans.

Application Process:

• Submit complete City of Seattle online application
• Upload your current resume, AND
• Include a cover letter that addresses your knowledge, experience, and interest related to this position

*** You must submit both a resume and cover letter. If you do not submit these documents, your application may not be considered. Please ensure that BOTH documents have successfully been uploaded before submitting your application. ***

If you have any questions or require a reasonable accommodation to complete any part of the selection process, please contact Julie Hugill at Julie.Hugill@Seattle.gov

Workplace Environment (Telework Expectation): This position offers the flexibility of a hybrid work schedule. At this time, hybrid schedules require at least three days onsite per week. Individual schedules are determined by operational needs.

Background Check: This hiring process involves a background check of conviction and arrest records in compliance with Seattle's Fair Chance Employment Ordinance, SMC 14.17. Applicants will be provided an opportunity to explain or correct background information.

Who may apply: This role is open to all candidates that meet the minimum qualifications. We value different view points and life experiences. Your application will be considered regardless of race, color, creed, national origin, ancestry, sex, marital status, disability, religious or political affiliation, age, sexual orientation, or gender identity. The City encourages people of all backgrounds to apply, including people of color, immigrants, refugees, women, LGBTQ , people with disabilities, veterans, and those with diverse life experiences.

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Salary : $159,147 - $262,629