AI Security Engineer Role - $150/hr Offensive Cyber

Terac; Redmond (WA); Remote; USD 170,000 - 243,000; Part time

Job summary

Terac is hiring offensive cybersecurity engineers to deliver long‑term hourly work focused on AI evaluation. You will design and implement complex security benchmarks and reinforcement learning environments to test frontier AI models remotely from the United States.

Ideal candidates have hands‑on experience in offensive security or penetration testing and familiarity with RL or AI evaluation frameworks. This role is a contract engagement with a $150/hour rate and requires US‑based applicants.

Qualifications

• Experience in offensive cybersecurity and penetration testing is required.
• Familiarity with reinforcement learning and AI evaluation frameworks is highly valued.
• Ability to design secure, testable benchmarks for AI systems.

Responsibilities

• Design and build offensive cybersecurity reinforcement learning environments.
• Harden benchmarks to withstand advanced AI interactions.
• Develop rigorous evaluation criteria for frontier AI models.
• Collaborate on long‑term hourly remote projects to iterate on security scenarios.

Skills

Offensive cybersecurity

Penetration testing

Security research

Reinforcement learning

AI evaluation

Job description

AI Security Engineer Role - $150/hr Offensive Cyber — Remote

Market Compensation: At $150/hour, this contract rate is well above the market average for senior penetration testers (typically $60–$120/hour on contract) and even senior application security engineers (~$80–$130/hour). This premium reflects the niche intersection of offensive security and AI/ML evaluation — a space with very few experienced practitioners.

Skill Development: This role sits at a genuinely rare crossroads of two high-demand fields:

• AI Safety & Red-Teaming: Evaluating frontier AI models is an emerging discipline with explosive demand from major labs (OpenAI, Anthropic, Google DeepMind). Early experience here is a strong career differentiator.
• Reinforcement Learning Environments: Building RL environments is a specialized ML engineering skill that opens doors in AI research and applied ML teams.
• Offensive Security Benchmarking: Creating rigorous, reproducible security benchmarks is a credentialing-worthy contribution to the security research community.

Green Flags: Terac's model of connecting vetted human experts to AI labs is well-positioned in the current AI boom. Work done here could lead to ongoing, repeat engagements with leading AI research organizations.

Red Flags: This is a contract/project role, not a full-time position, so there are no benefits, job security guarantees, or defined career ladder. Treat it as high-value consulting, not a primary career anchor.

We're hiring offensive cybersecurity experts for a long-term paid project focused on AI evaluation. Our goal is to build and harden reinforcement learning environments that test the limits of frontier AI models. This work directly contributes to understanding and mitigating advanced security risks in emerging technologies.

How It Works

You will work remotely on an hourly basis to design and implement complex cybersecurity benchmarks. Your tasks will involve creating robust reinforcement learning environments tailored for offensive security scenarios. You will continuously harden these environments to ensure they provide rigorous evaluations for AI systems. The project requires ongoing collaboration and iterative development to keep pace with new vulnerabilities.

Who This Is For

We welcome offensive cybersecurity engineers, penetration testers, and security researchers with strong technical backgrounds. Ideal candidates have hands‑on experience building secure environments or developing security benchmarks. Familiarity with reinforcement learning or AI evaluation frameworks is highly valued but not strictly required.

What You'll Do

• Design and build offensive cybersecurity reinforcement learning environments
• Harden existing benchmarks to withstand advanced AI interactions
• Develop rigorous evaluation criteria for frontier AI models
• Collaborate on a long‑term hourly basis to iterate on security scenarios

Who Should Apply

• Professional experience in offensive cybersecurity or penetration testing
• Strong background in building or hardening technical environments
• Comfortable working on long‑term hourly remote projects
• Interest in AI safety and model evaluation

Terac is building the world's largest pool of vetted human experts for AI. Researchers, AI labs, and product teams use Terac to recruit, screen, and pay study participants across industries, languages, and skill sets.

Is this a full‑time job or a contract engagement? This is a long‑term hourly contract role, not a full‑time position. You will be paid $150 per hour for the work you complete on an ongoing project basis. Do I need prior experience with reinforcement learning or AI to apply? Familiarity with reinforcement learning or AI evaluation frameworks is highly valued but not strictly required. Strong offensive cybersecurity or penetration testing experience is the primary qualification. Can I work from outside the United States? No — this role is listed as USA Only, so applicants must be based in the United States. What is the hourly rate for this contract? The compensation is $150 per hour.

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