Senior Backend Engineer | Cybersecurity AI AppSec

Escape; Paris; Hybrid; EUR 90,000 - 120,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Significant equity

Top-tier health insurance

Meal vouchers

Sport subscription

Learning budgets

Premium equipment

Open-source time

Conference talks

Job summary

Escape, a fast-growing AI-powered cybersecurity company in Paris, is hiring a Senior Backend Engineer. You will work with security researchers to translate research into production-grade systems, focusing on autonomous scanning, detection logic, and scalable infrastructure.

Join a mission-driven team and contribute to architecture decisions while deploying across Kubernetes, queues, and cloud storage. Hybrid work in Paris with opportunities for research presentation and continuous learning.

Qualifications

• 4+ years of backend engineering, security research, or applied R&D in a product environment.
• Strong fundamentals across systems, networking, and web architectures.
• Proficient in at least one backend language (Python or Go).
• Experience shipping production systems with measurable impact.
• Ability to translate complex ideas or research into reliable, scalable implementations.
• Collaborative mindset across engineering and security.

Responsibilities

• Build autonomous scanning systems that explore applications, maintain context, and execute complex testing strategies.
• Design and implement production-grade vulnerability detection logic (injection, auth issues, business logic flaws).
• Integrate LLMs and structured reasoning into scanning workflows to improve coverage and reduce false positives.
• Work on distributed infrastructure that orchestrates thousands of concurrent scans (Kubernetes, queues, resource management).
• Ensure scans are fast, deterministic, and cost-efficient despite high complexity and concurrency.
• Contribute to architecture decisions around memory systems, execution environments, and data models.

Skills

Backend engineering

Security research

Distributed systems

Python

Go

System design

Tools

Kubernetes

Kafka

PostgreSQL

Terraform

GitLab CI

Playwright

OpenTelemetry

Job description

• Scaling: Kubernetes Jobs & queue-driven autoscaling

Location

Paris (75002) | Hybrid (2 days remote/week)

About Escape

Join Escape, a fast-growing leader in AI-powered cybersecurity. Our mission-driven engineering team (18 engineers, 4 technical leads, 3 product owners) is dedicated to redefining application security with cutting-edge detection and automation.

We operate at the forefront of technology and research from our Paris office.

About The Role

As a Senior Backend Engineer you will work in a team with talented security researchers. You’ll champion innovation, and ensure research translates into impactful production solutions.

What You'll Do

• Agentic scanning systems: Build systems that autonomously explore applications, maintain context, and execute complex testing strategies.
• Security detection engine: Design and implement reliable, production-grade vulnerability detection logic (injection, auth issues, business logic flaws, etc.).
• AI-driven testing: Integrate LLMs and structured reasoning into scanning workflows to improve coverage and reduce false positives.
• Distributed infrastructure: Work on systems that orchestrate thousands of concurrent scans (Kubernetes, queues, resource management).
• Performance & reliability: Ensure scans are fast, deterministic, and cost-efficient despite high complexity and concurrency.
• Core platform design: Contribute to architecture decisions around memory systems, execution environments, and data models.

Our Tech Stack & Focus

• Languages: Python (primary), Go (performance/network components)
• Runtime: Containerized workloads on Kubernetes (EKS), supporting long and resource-intensive scans
• Scaling: Kubernetes Jobs & queue-driven autoscaling
• Web Automation: Playwright + headless Chromium
• Data: PostgreSQL, S3-compatible object storage, Redis (limited use)
• Messaging: Kafka
• Observability: OpenTelemetry, Grafana Cloud
• CI/CD & Infra: GitLab CI, Terraform

Perks & Benefits

• Significant equity (Stock Options/BSPCE) – become a core stakeholder in Escape’s journey
• Top-tier health insurance with Alan
• Meal vouchers with Swile
• EGYM Wellpass sport subscription
• Continuous learning: budgets for books and online courses
• Premium equipment to support your work
• Dedicated time for open-source projects
• Present research at top international conferences (RSAC, BlackHat, DEFCON, BSides, APIDays)

About You

• 4+ years of experience in backend engineering, security research, or applied R&D in a product environment
• Strong software engineering fundamentals and ability to work across domains (systems, networking, web architectures)
• Proficient in at least one backend language (Python, Go, or similar)
• Experience designing and shipping production systems with measurable impact
• Ability to translate complex ideas or research into reliable, scalable implementations
• Strong analytical mindset, with a focus on pragmatism and impact
• Comfortable collaborating across engineering and security to deliver end-to-end solutions

Nice to have:

• Experience in application security (web security, pentesting, bug bounty, etc.)
• Exposure to AI/LLM-based systems
• Familiarity with browser automation or large-scale distributed systems