Security Champions Program: Embedding Security Expertise in Every Development Team

Scaling Security Through Champions

A Security Champions Program places security-minded developers within each engineering team, creating a distributed security network that scales security knowledge and practices across the organization.

Program Structure

Selection

• Voluntary participation (passion matters more than expertise)
• One champion per development team
• Diverse representation across technology stacks
• Management support for dedicated time (10-20%)

Training

• Monthly security training sessions
• OWASP fundamentals and secure coding
• Tool-specific training (SAST, DAST, SCA)
• Incident response basics
• Hands-on CTF exercises

Responsibilities

• First point of contact for security questions in their team
• Review pull requests for common security issues
• Advocate for security requirements in sprint planning
• Escalate complex issues to the security team
• Share security knowledge through team presentations

Metrics and Recognition

Program Metrics

• Number of security issues identified by champions
• Reduction in security debt per team
• Training completion rates
• Vulnerability remediation time improvement

Recognition

• Security champion certification
• Conference attendance opportunities
• Career development support
• Visible recognition in company communications

Tooling Support

Equip champions with:

• IDE security plugins for real-time feedback
• Access to security scanning dashboards
• Threat modeling tools and templates
• Secure coding reference guides
• Direct communication channel with security team

Maturity Model

Where SuperClue Fits

SuperClue offers security training through its Academy and a findings dashboard for each scan, which champions can use to track fixes in their teams.