Application Security Engineer, Generative AI

Liftoff; Sacramento (CA); Remote; USD 184,000 - 220,000; Full time

Job summary

Liftoff is a leading AI-powered performance marketing platform for the mobile app economy. The Liftoff Security team protects Liftoff's customers, users, and employees.

We architect Liftoff's security posture and build automation across the stack, focusing on GenAI, Creative GenAI, and emerging businesses. We are seeking an individual contributor to own application security, collaborate with engineering teams, and drive security across cloud and infrastructure.

Qualifications

• 5+ years of security engineering or software engineering experience.
• Strong risk-based prioritization judgment.
• Experience partnering with cross-functional teams to deliver security improvements.
• Write production-quality code for security tools and automation.
• Strong understanding of secure software design, API security, authentication/authorization, threat modeling, and code review.
• Experience assessing cloud and infrastructure security.
• Ability to understand complex engineering systems.
• Strong technical writing: design documents, runbooks, and post-incident reviews.

Responsibilities

• Establish secure software development standards and integrate security into engineering design and development.
• Create self-service paths for secure deployment through documented review workflows, reusable tools, and secure design patterns.
• Perform design and code reviews, threat modeling, and security assessments for GenAI, Creative GenAI, and emerging businesses, including sandbox design and isolation.
• Partner with stakeholders across the organization to build a culture of security-minded builders.
• Triage incoming security issues, prioritize vulnerabilities by risk, and work with engineering teams through timely remediation and verification.
• Assess vendors and AI tools to ensure their security controls and product features support secure employee use.
• Share the security team's on-call and incident-response rotation, including occasional off-hours response.
• Conduct blameless post-incident reviews, document findings, and follow through on remediation.
• Build maintainable security tools and automation, including an AI-assisted code-security triage pilot that produces actionable findings at a false-positive rate engineering will accept.
• Partner with Detection & Response to turn application-security findings and threat models into detection improvements and response guidance.
• Contribute across application, cloud, and infrastructure security as priorities change, including Accelerate and MX.

Skills

Security engineering

Code review

Threat modeling

Cloud security

On-call experience

Written communication

Go

Python

JavaScript

Tools

Go

Python

JavaScript

Job description

Liftoff is a leading AI-powered performance marketing platform for the mobile app economy. Our end-to-end technology stack helps app marketers acquire and retain high-value users, while enabling publishers to maximize revenue across programmatic and direct demand. Liftoff's solutions, including Accelerate, Direct, Monetize, Intelligence, and Vungle Exchange, support over 6,600 mobile businesses across 74 countries in sectors such as gaming, social, finance, ecommerce, and entertainment. Founded in 2012 and headquartered in Redwood City, CA, Liftoff has a diverse, global presence.

About Liftoff Security Team

The Liftoff Security team protects Liftoff's customers, users, and employees. We architect Liftoff's security posture, build the tools and systems that defend it, and partner with engineering teams as they ship new products and features. Our work spans the entire stack - infrastructure, web, mobile, and IT - and we approach security from a software engineering standpoint, scaling our impact through automation and well-designed tools. This individual contributor role reports to the Director of Security and owns application security for GenAI, Creative GenAI, and emerging businesses. Application security is the primary focus; you will also contribute across cloud and infrastructure security, support Accelerate and MX as priorities change, and share the team's on-call and incident-response work.

Responsibilities

• Establish secure software development standards and integrate security into engineering design and development.
• Create self-service paths for engineering teams to build and deploy securely through documented review workflows, reusable tools, and secure design patterns.
• Perform design and code reviews, threat modeling, and security assessments for GenAI, Creative GenAI, and emerging businesses, including sandbox design and isolation.
• Partner with stakeholders across the organization to build a culture of security-minded builders.
• Triage incoming security issues, prioritize vulnerabilities by risk, and work with engineering teams through timely remediation and verification.
• Assess vendors and AI tools to ensure their security controls and product features support secure employee use.
• Share the security team's on-call and incident-response rotation, including occasional off-hours response.
• Conduct blameless post-incident reviews, document findings, and follow through on remediation.
• Build maintainable security tools and automation, including an AI-assisted code-security triage pilot that produces actionable findings at a false-positive rate engineering will accept.
• Partner with Detection & Response to turn application-security findings and threat models into detection improvements and response guidance.
• Contribute across application, cloud, and infrastructure security as priorities change, including Accelerate and MX.

Minimum qualifications

• 5+ years of relevant experience in security engineering or software engineering.
• Excellent judgment in prioritizing security efforts using a risk-based approach.
• Experience partnering with cross-functional teams to deliver security improvements and help engineers choose practical fixes.
• Write production-quality code for security tools and automation, review pull requests, and navigate large, unfamiliar codebases.
• Strong understanding of secure software design, application and API security, authentication and authorization, threat modeling, and code review.
• Experience assessing cloud and infrastructure security and contributing beyond a primary application-security specialty.
• Ability to quickly understand complex engineering systems and architecture.
• Practical software engineering habits: testing, observability, version control, peer code review, continuous integration, and blameless postmortems.
• Strong technical writing: design documents, proposals, runbooks, and post-incident reviews that support engineering decisions.
• Explain security risks and tradeoffs clearly in writing and conversation.
• Willingness to share the security team's on-call and incident-response responsibilities, including occasional off-hours response.

Desirable qualifications

• Experience with Go, Python, Clojure, or JavaScript; ability to work across languages matters more than a specific language.
• Experience securing GenAI applications, designing sandboxes, or evaluating AI-assisted security tools and their output.
• Experience scaling cloud security or working with high-velocity software engineering teams, mobile advertising, or other high-volume SaaS environments.

Why This Role is Exciting

High Visibility & Impact : Be a core member of a security team with significant influence.

Diverse & Challenging Projects : Engage in various domains including product security, vendor security, corporate security, and infrastructure security.

Security-Conscious Engineering Culture : Collaborate with engineering teams that value security and are eager to partner on initiatives.

Large-Scale Systems & Technical Challenges : Tackle complex security challenges across Liftoff's infrastructure and applications.

Hands-On Technical work:

Stay deeply involved in technical security efforts, from writing and reviewing code to architecting secure solutions.

If this role sounds interesting to you, we would love to hear from you!

Locations

This role is eligible for full-time remote work in one of our entities/states and Canada: CA, CO, ID, IL, FL, GA, MA, MI, MN, MO, NJ, NV, NY, OR, PA, TX, UT, and WA. We are a remote-first company with US hubs in Redwood City, Los Angeles, and New York City.

Travel Expectations

We offer several opportunities for in-person team gatherings, including but not limited to project meetings, regional meetups, and company-wide events. We expect our employees to attend these gatherings at least once per quarter. These gatherings provide essential opportunities for collaboration, communication, and team building.

Compensation

• SF Bay Area, Los Angeles/Orange County, NYC, Seattle : $200,000 - $250,000 plus bonus
• All other cities and towns in our approved states: $184,000 - $220,000 plus bonus#LI-EL1

We use Covey as part of our hiring and/or promotional process for jobs in NYC and certain features may qualify it as an AEDT. As part of the evaluation process, we provide Covey with job requirements and candidate-submitted applications. We began using Covey Scout for Inbound on January 22, 2024. Please see the independent bias audit report covering our use of Covey here.

Liftoff offers a fast-paced, collaborative, and innovative work environment where employees are empowered to grow and make an impact. We're shaping the future of the mobile app ecosystem--join us and help accelerate what's next.

Liftoff's compensation strategy includes competitive salaries, equity, and benefits designed to support employee well-being and performance. We benchmark compensation based on role, level, and location to ensure fairness and market alignment. Benefits may include medical coverage, wellness stipends, and additional perks based on your country of residence.

Liftoff is an equal opportunity employer. We are committed to creating an inclusive environment for all employees and applicants regardless of race, ethnicity, national origin, age, marital status, disability, sexual orientation, gender identity, religion, veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by applicable law.