QNX Senior Security Researcher

QNX; Ottawa; On-site; CAD 108,750 - 158,750; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

VIP bonus program

Benefits package

Job summary

BlackBerry is seeking a security researcher to hunt vulnerabilities across embedded QNX products and platforms. You will design fuzzing campaigns and collaborate with engineering teams to reproduce and remediate issues.

Join a team focused on AI-assisted vulnerability discovery and state-of-the-art security testing across critical embedded OS ecosystems in Ottawa. This role offers a comprehensive benefits package and a competitive salary.

Qualifications

• Hands‑on experience in vulnerability research, penetration testing, exploit development, or offensive security.
• Practical experience with fuzzing frameworks such as AFL, libFuzzer, or similar.
• Strong understanding of memory management, POSIX APIs, concurrency, and embedded systems concepts.
• Proficiency in C, C++, and Python.

Responsibilities

• Hunt for vulnerabilities across QNX products and embedded software components before attackers find them.
• Perform penetration testing and offensive security assessments against real-world embedded platforms.
• Design, develop, and execute large-scale fuzzing campaigns to uncover memory corruption defects, logic flaws, and emerging vulnerability classes.
• Investigate crashes and software defects to determine exploitability and security impact.
• Conduct root-cause analysis and exploit development to understand and demonstrate real-world attack scenarios.
• Leverage AI/ML-assisted techniques to accelerate vulnerability discovery and improve security analysis workflows.
• Build and evolve automated security testing frameworks, fuzzers, scanners, and exploit validation pipelines.
• Collaborate closely with engineering teams to reproduce, triage, and remediate vulnerabilities.
• Contribute tools, methodologies, and research that strengthen our overall security posture.
• Stay at the forefront of emerging threats and vulnerability research affecting modern embedded operating systems.

Skills

Vulnerability research

Penetration testing

Exploit development

C/C++ programming

Python programming

Automation tooling

Tools

AFL

libFuzzer

IDA Pro

Ghidra

Binary Ninja

Job description

Job Description

QNX enhances the human experience and amplifies technology-driven industries, providing a trusted foundation for software-defined businesses to thrive. The business leads the way in delivering safe and secure operating systems, hypervisors, middleware, solutions, and development tools, along with support and services delivered by trusted embedded software experts. With a focus on reducing hardware dependency and increasing efficiency, QNX empowers organizations to unlock new possibilities in areas like high-performance computing at the edge, standards-based virtualization technologies, and cloud enablement. QNX® technology has been deployed in the world’s most critical embedded systems, including more than 275 million vehicles on the road today. QNX® software is trusted across industries including automotive, medical devices, industrial controls, robotics, commercial vehicles, rail, and aerospace and defense.

Worker Sub-Type

Regular

Are you the person we are looking for?

We're expanding our Product Cybersecurity team and looking for passionate security researchers who love understanding how software fails, uncovering hidden vulnerabilities, and pushing offensive security techniques to the next level. If you're the type of person who can't resist digging deeper into a crash dump, writing custom fuzzing harnesses, reversing software to understand its inner workings, or using AI to uncover attack paths others miss, we'd love to talk to you.

What You'll Do

• Hunt for vulnerabilities across QNX products and embedded software components before attackers find them.
• Perform penetration testing and offensive security assessments against real-world embedded platforms.
• Design, develop, and execute large-scale fuzzing campaigns to uncover memory corruption defects, logic flaws, and emerging vulnerability classes.
• Investigate crashes and software defects to determine exploitability and security impact.
• Conduct root-cause analysis and exploit development to understand and demonstrate real-world attack scenarios.
• Leverage AI/ML-assisted techniques to accelerate vulnerability discovery and improve security analysis workflows.
• Build and evolve automated security testing frameworks, fuzzers, scanners, and exploit validation pipelines.
• Collaborate closely with engineering teams to reproduce, triage, and remediate vulnerabilities.
• Contribute tools, methodologies, and research that strengthen our overall security posture.
• Stay at the forefront of emerging threats and vulnerability research affecting modern embedded operating systems.

What We’re Looking For

• Hands‑on experience in vulnerability research, penetration testing, exploit development, or offensive security.
• Practical experience with fuzzing frameworks such as AFL, libFuzzer, or similar technologies.
• Strong understanding of low‑level software internals including memory management, process isolation, POSIX APIs, concurrency, and embedded systems concepts.
• Familiarity with common vulnerability classes such as: Use‑after‑free; Heap corruption; Buffer overflows; Race conditions; Privilege escalation; Logic vulnerabilities.
• Strong programming skills in C, C++, and Python.
• Experience developing automation and tooling for security testing or vulnerability discovery.
• A passion for investigating complex systems and finding weaknesses others overlook.
• The ability to independently drive research initiatives from concept through discovery and validation.

Bonus Points If You Have

• Experience applying AI or machine learning techniques to security research or vulnerability detection.
• Knowledge of automotive cybersecurity, embedded systems, or QNX-based platforms.
• Familiarity with ISO/SAE 21434 or secure software development practices.
• Reverse engineering experience using tools such as IDA Pro, Ghidra, Binary Ninja, or similar frameworks.
• Experience working with operating systems, kernels, drivers, or low‑level system software.

Why You’ll Love This Role

• This is an opportunity to spend your time exploring, researching, breaking, and improving the security of software that runs some of the most important systems in the world. You'll have the freedom to: Pursue challenging security research questions; Build new tools and automation frameworks; Experiment with emerging AI‑assisted security techniques; Influence the security of products deployed at massive scale; Collaborate with world‑class embedded engineers and security researchers; Turn curiosity into real‑world impact.

Scheduled Weekly Hours

40

Compensation Hiring Base Salary Range

$108,750.00 - $158,750.00

Actual compensation offered will be determined at the time of hire and is contingent upon multiple factors, including but not limited to the candidate’s qualifications, relevant experience, demonstrated skills, and results of assessments conducted during the hiring process.

Bonus

The BlackBerry Variable Incentive Pay (VIP) program is an organization‑wide bonus incentive program which aims to reward full‑time eligible employees for their contribution to BlackBerry’s success. VIP payments are made in addition to base salary and factor in company’s performance as a way for employees to share in BlackBerry’s achievements.

Benefits

The BlackBerry Employee Benefits programs offer a wide range of benefits that support your physical, financial and personal well‑being. BlackBerry remains committed to offering affordable benefits including coverage for medical, dental, vision, life, disability insurance, retirement, employee share purchase program and paid‑time‑off to those that meet the eligibility requirements.

Disclosure of Position Status

This is an active opening. We are seeking to fill this position immediately.

Disclosure of Artificial Intelligence

We do not use artificial intelligence (AI) to screen, assess, or select applicants at any stage of our recruitment process. All applications are reviewed and evaluated by our hiring team.