Founding IT Security Engineer — Hybrid, Build Research

MATS Research; Greater London; Hybrid; GBP 110,000 - 160,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

In-office lunches

Staff retreats

Professional development

Hybrid work

Hybrid office in London/Berkeley

Job summary

MATS Research is seeking its first dedicated IT Security hire to build and own the corporate IT and security function across UK/US operations. The role focuses on IT security with future growth into research infrastructure, enabling secure collaboration for a distributed research team.

You will implement endpoint security, IAM, email security, and governance for audits (SOC 2, ISO 27001). This is a hybrid position based in London or Berkeley, with a clear path to scale security as the

Qualifications

• Experience building an IT/security function from scratch with autonomy in an early-stage org.
• Hands-on background configuring systems, scripting automation, and securing IT ops.
• Familiarity with SOC 2, ISO 27001, Cyber Essentials and vendor security requirements.
• Ability to translate security needs into plain English for researchers and leadership.
• Judgment balancing security with speed in frontier-relevant research.

Responsibilities

• Build a secure-by-default endpoint environment across London/Berkeley and remote staff.
• Own identity and access management with Zero-Trust, SSO and MFA.
• Implement advanced email security, phishing protection, and secure collaborative workflows.
• Lead audits for frontier-model access and manage vendor security reviews.
• Run day-to-day security program: access reviews, backups, incident response.

Skills

Security leadership

Hands-on sysadmin

Compliance knowledge

Identity & access mgmt

Zero-Trust concepts

SIEM experience

Tools

Rippling MDM

EDR

SIEM

IAM tooling

KnowBe4

Hoxhunt

Vanta

Drata

Job description

MATS Research is seeking its first dedicated IT Security hire to build and own the corporate IT and security function across UK/US operations. The role focuses on IT security with future growth into research infrastructure, enabling secure collaboration for a distributed research team.

You will implement endpoint security, IAM, email security, and governance for audits (SOC 2, ISO 27001). This is a hybrid position based in London or Berkeley, with a clear path to scale security as the