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Security champion
A developer in a team who takes on security questions and spreads good habits.
What it means
A security champion is a member of a product or engineering team, usually a developer, who takes a special interest in security and acts as the team's first point of contact for it. It is a role alongside their normal job, not a new department.
They are not meant to fix every flaw alone. They answer simple questions, raise issues in planning and reviews, and link the team to the people who specialise in security. The aim is to move security knowledge into the team instead of leaving it in one corner.
Why it matters
Most security teams are small compared with the number of developers they serve, so they cannot read every change. A champion sits inside the team, sees work early, and can ask the right question at the point where changing a design is still cheap.
It also changes how security is received. Advice from a colleague who knows the codebase lands better than a report from outside. Over time, the team's security debt grows more slowly, because fewer flaws are written in the first place.
How it shows up
Good programmes give champions a few clear jobs: join threat-modelling sessions, review sensitive pull requests, triage scanner results, and share short lessons from past incidents. They also give them time. A role added on top of a full workload tends to fade within a few months.
Training, a regular meeting and a direct line to the security team keep it alive. The mistakes repeat: volunteers with no time, no recognition, or no authority to say no. Pair the role with developer security training so champions have something real to pass on.
Questions people ask
Security champion, answered
Is a security champion the same as a security engineer?
No. A champion is a developer who does some security work part of the time. A security engineer works on it full time. The champion links the two worlds and does not replace the specialist.
Does every team need one?
Having one per team or product area works best, because champions need to know their own codebase. Small companies may start with one or two people covering several teams. This keeps the link between security and the work close.
What skills should a champion have?
Curiosity matters more than expertise. They should be trusted by their peers, willing to learn, and comfortable raising concerns. The programme can teach the technical side. Credibility with colleagues counts for a lot.
How do we keep the role from fading?
Give them protected time, visible recognition and a regular place to meet other champions. Also make clear what decisions they can make, so the role has some weight. Without those, the role usually fades within a few months.
Can a champion replace penetration testing?
No. A champion improves habits and catches issues early, but an independent test still shows what an outsider could do. The two work best together. It finds a different class of problem.
Sources
Where this comes from
Related
Terms that sit next to this one
Developer security training
Teaching engineers the flaws they are most likely to introduce, and how to avoid them.
OWASP SAMM
A model for measuring and improving how well an organisation builds secure software.
Secure code review
Reading code specifically to spot security flaws before they ship.
DevSecOps
Making security a shared, automated part of development and operations.
Shift left
Doing security work while code is written, not as a check at the end.
What does your team keep finding?
Champions get more done when they receive findings they can act on. Ours arrive with the request, the response and the line of code, so a developer can reproduce and fix without a meeting. Book a pilot on one app.
Or start with a $199 pilot on one application: thirty days, success criteria agreed before day one, credited against the annual if you convert.