Staff Software Security Engineer, Security Research Labs
AI research and safety company with a fast-growing security organization; roles also listed in New York and Seattle
| Employer | AI research and safety company with a fast-growing security organization; roles also listed in New York and Seattle (not named) |
|---|---|
| Location | San Francisco, CA (Bay Area) · Hybrid |
| Type & level | Full-time · Staff |
| Pay | USD 320k–485k base Source: pay range stated in the source posting |
| Visa path | O-1A fit (senior candidates) |
| Role family | Cloud & Infrastructure Security Architect |
About the role
This role sits on a small security research group that runs short, high-risk projects aimed at defending frontier AI systems against very well-resourced attackers. Each project is either handed to the team that will run it in production or closed out with a writeup. The engineer picks and owns bets such as isolated research clusters, provable inference and verified compilation.
What you'll do
- Scope, prototype and run security experiments end to end, finishing in either a hand-off or a documented exit.
- Stand up isolated clusters, attestation chains, hypervisor and runtime tooling quickly to learn what holds up.
- Identify the receiving production team early and prepare something they want to own.
- Work alongside training, inference and compute teams to test whether their workflows survive stricter isolation.
- Write short, actionable reports and costed contingency plans that shape long-term security architecture.
- Help choose the next round of security bets.
Requirements
- Real depth in an area most engineers avoid, such as firmware or hardware security, applied cryptography, kernel or hypervisor internals, formal methods or reverse engineering.
- Strong programming in Python plus at least one of Rust, Go or C/C++.
- A record of building and shipping work under your own direction and choosing the problem yourself.
- Comfort moving between layers of the stack and running experiments that may not pan out.
- Clear writing that turns weeks of work into a couple of pages.
- Bachelor's degree or equivalent training or experience.
Nice to have
- Experience in airgapped or high-side environments such as cross-domain, ICS/SCADA or trading infrastructure.
- Background in offensive security, red teaming or vulnerability research.
- Familiarity with ML infrastructure such as training pipelines, schedulers and inference serving.
- History in fast-iteration settings like startups, applied research or small security shops.
Pay & benefits
USD 320k–485k base. The posting does not list benefits beyond a stated salary range and hybrid office expectations of at least 25% in office. It says the employer offers visa support and retains an immigration lawyer.
Pay source: pay range stated in the source posting. Market data, not an offer from O1DMatch.
Visa path
Senior security engineers often support an O-1A case with evidence such as original contributions (open-source projects, published research, vulnerability disclosures), high compensation, judging or peer review, and recognition in the field. The posting states no citizenship restriction and says the employer offers visa support, though not for every role or candidate. An employer like this or a U.S. agent can file the petition; approval depends on the individual evidence.
How to get matched
- Take the free eligibility checkAn AI review of your background against the eight O-1 criteria, at check.o1dmatch.com.
- Create your profile with code WORKWITHUSIt unlocks the Starter plan at no cost. Tell us your field and the work you do today.
- Upload your evidenceEach document is sorted under the criterion it supports, and your criteria map shows what is still missing.
- Get matchedWe match strong profiles with U.S. employers hiring for roles like this one. Gigs you confirm with verified companies count toward your itinerary, and at a score of 75 we connect you with an immigration attorney.
This listing describes a real U.S. posting so you can see what employers ask for. O1DMatch does not represent that employer and does not hold this opening; applying matches you with employers hiring for this kind of role. No visa outcome is promised.