Security Engineer (Kubernetes)

xAI; Ashington; Hybrid; GBP 80,000 - 120,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Health insurance

Life insurance

Flexible vacation

Visa sponsorship

401(k) plan

Job summary

xAI is seeking a security-focused engineer to harden and defend the Kubernetes-based platform and SpaceXSI infrastructure. You will evaluate pod and workload security, design practical controls, and build automated tooling to detect and remediate risks across fleets.

Collaboration with platform and product teams is essential to deliver safe, scalable security at pace. Ideal candidates have hands-on experience with container security, RBAC, secrets management, supply chain security, and

Qualifications

• 3+ years in platform security, Kubernetes security, or offensive security against production infrastructure.
• Ability to build or modify security tooling in Go, Python, or Rust for automation.
• Experience securing containerized workloads, RBAC, service accounts, network policies and supply chain controls.

Responsibilities

• Protect the platform behind X and SpaceXSI’s infrastructure, products and workloads.
• Secure nodes, clusters, pods, roles, tokens, secrets and service-to-service communication.
• Identify and remediate overprivileged permissions and risky pod/workload settings.
• Design and build security tooling and automation, including AI-assisted analysis.
• Collaborate with platform and product teams as a security owner from identification to rollout.

Skills

Kubernetes security

Platform security

Threat modeling

Go/Python/Rust

Tools

Kyverno

OPA

GitOps

Helm

Job description

• We protect the platform that runs X and SpaceXSI. We don’t just report issues, we actively look for real risks and exploits in our Kubernetes environments and turn them into durable fixes and tooling
• You will secure the platform behind X and SpaceXSI’s infrastructure, products, and workloads. If you know pod and platform security, think in attack paths, and want to build the defenses that make the platform safer at scale, we want to hear from you
• We Value:
• Understanding how Kubernetes can actually be abused, not only how it is configured
• Shipping practical controls and tooling over writing policy documents
• Least privilege and defense-in-depth at fleet scale
• Clear findings and fixes that platform teams can act on
• Safe, constrained validation that does not put production at risk
• Secure the platform end to end: nodes, clusters, pods, roles, tokens, secrets, service-to-service communication, and the supply chain
• Find and remediate overprivileged permissions, dangerous pod and workload settings, and escalation paths in operators, admission, networking, identity, and monitoring
• Assess our own platform the way an adversary would, including container and pod breakout, privilege escalation, and movement across workloads, using safe and constrained validation, then fix what you find
• Design and build security tooling and automation, including AI-assisted analysis, that catches risky configuration and overprivilege before or after it ships
• Strengthen identity and secrets handling so workloads receive only the access they need
• Improve supply-chain security through secure base images, continuous scanning, and related controls
• Review changes that affect RBAC, operators, ServiceAccounts, network policies, and anything running with elevated privileges
• Partner with platform and product teams as a security owner, taking problems from identification through rollout
• Contribute to fleet-wide hardening, policy enforcement, and safer defaults

Benefits

• Health and wellness: Comprehensive health insurance including medical, dental, vision, and disability coverage
• Life and family: Life and AD&D insurance and fertility benefits to ensure our team’s well-being and peace of mind
• Flexible vacation: We work hard but avoid burn out. Take time off when you need it
• Visa sponsorship: We support international talent with visa sponsorship to join our team
• 401(k) plan: Retirement savings plan to secure your financial future

• Comfortable with operators, custom resources, Helm, and GitOps workflows
• Bonus: Image scanning, SBOMs, secure base images, policy-as-code (Kyverno, OPA), multi-cluster environments, runtime detection, and security testing of customer-facing application
• 3+ years in platform security, Kubernetes security, or offensive security against production infrastructure
• Working knowledge of identity, secrets, workload identity, service-to-service trust, supply chain, runtime, and cloud access
• Able to build or modify security tooling in Go, Python, or Rust when a control needs automation
• Able to think like an attacker, measure blast radius, and turn the path into a detection, control, or tool
• Open to working out of one of our offices: Palo Alto, Austin, DC, or New York
• Deep knowledge of pod and workload security: privileged containers, capabilities, host namespaces, host path mounts, service accounts, RBAC, admission control, and network isolation
• Experience developing AI-driven security tools or integrating AI into security workflows
• Familiarity with Kubernetes-based environments and securing cloud-native infrastructure
• Proven ability to drive technical decisions and influence security practices across teams
• A passion for challenging the status quo and building transformative security solutions
• Strong collaboration skills, with experience working in dynamic, cross-functional teams
• A sense of humor and adaptability to thrive in a fast-paced, mission-driven environment