Director, AI Security Science (Remote)

Socket.dev; Washington; Hybrid; USD 195,000 - 290,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Market-leading compensation

Wellness programs

Generous vacation

Parental leave

Professional development

Employee networks

Vibrant office culture

Great Place to Work Certified

Job summary

CrowdStrike seeks an applied research lead to steer the agentic AI frontier in cybersecurity. You will set scientific direction, lead experiments, and guide teams of scientists and engineers while remaining hands-on.

The role spans post-training models, harnesses, and verification methodologies to ensure responsible, effective deployment. You will collaborate with security researchers, threat intel, detection engineering, and product to ground research in real operator workflows and adversarial

Qualifications

• MS or PhD in computer science, computer engineering, or similar quantitative field.
• 10+ years of experience in data science, ML/DL, or AI with a focus on large-scale data problems.
• Hands-on expertise in modern LLM post-training techniques.
• Demonstrated research contributions to or experience building agentic systems.
• Strong evaluation discipline (designing, extending, or validating methodologies).
• A leadership style that values hands-on contributions at every level, including your own.

Responsibilities

• Lead the research agenda for agentic AI systems that operate autonomously across cybersecurity use cases.
• Drive original research on efficient models tuned for security workflows, including post-training, reward modeling, and data curation.
• Establish a rigorous evaluation, verification, and validation methodology covering models, data, agent designs, and end-to-end systems.
• Partner closely with security researchers, threat intel, detection engineering, and product to ground applied research in real operator workflows.
• Define principled abstractions for the skills and tools agents use, grounded in practical deployment.
• Advance the science of agent design with harnesses, scaffolding, planning, memory, tool use, and multi-step reasoning.

Skills

Data science & ML/DL

LLM post-training

Agentic systems

Evaluation discipline

Hands-on leadership

Education

MS or PhD in CS/EE or related

Job description

As a global leader in cybersecurity, CrowdStrike protects the people, processes and technologies that drive modern organizations. Since 2011, our mission hasn’t changed — we’re here to stop breaches, and we’ve redefined modern security with the world’s most advanced AI-native platform. We work on large scale distributed systems, processing almost 3 trillion events per day and this traffic is growing daily. Our customers span all industries, and they count on CrowdStrike to keep their businesses running, their communities safe and their lives moving forward. We're proud to work for a mission-driven company leveraging AI to transform the way we work. CrowdStrikers drive their careers through flexibility and autonomy while also being expected to contribute to a culture of responsible AI adoption, experimentation, and innovation. We use an AI-first mindset as a force multiplier to proactively and continuously accelerate execution, build expertise, uncover insights, and solve complex problems. We’re always looking to add talented CrowdStrikers to the team who have limitless passion, a relentless focus on innovation and a fanatical commitment to our customers, our community and each other. Ready to join a mission that matters? The future of cybersecurity starts with you.

About the Role:

The frontier of cybersecurity is being reimagined by AI, and the defenders who win the next decade will be the ones who leverage agents that actually work in the constraints of the environment. We’re looking for an applied research lead to take on both sides (offensive and defensive) of this frontier and help turn it into products.

In this role, you’ll set the scientific direction for our agentic AI work and lead the research behind the next generation of security products. The problems span the full stack: post-training small, efficient models; designing and tuning the harnesses; and developing the evaluation and verification methodologies that give us rigor around if the agents are actually doing what we built them to do. These are open research problems, and we expect the person in this seat to advance the state of the art on them.

This is a player/coach role in the truest sense. You’ll lead teams of strong scientists and engineers, but you’ll also be in the work itself. The successful candidate will bring technical credibility, instincts sharpened by doing the work, and leads by raising the bar on what the team believes is possible.

What You’ll Do:

• Lead the research agenda for agentic AI systems that operate autonomously across cybersecurity use cases. Set scientific direction, shaping the team’s research bets and staying close enough to the work to run experiments, review results, and dig into hard problems alongside the team.

• Drive original research on efficient models tuned for security workflows, including methods in post-training, reward modeling, and data curation strategies that enable them. Personally lead the experimental work on the most ambiguous problems.

• Establish a rigorous evaluation, verification, and validation methodology covering models, data, agent designs, and end-to-end systems. This includes current and new benchmarks, adversarial evaluation protocols, and measurement practices that others in the field will adopt.

• Partner closely with security researchers, threat intel, detection engineering, and product to ground applied research in real operator workflows and adversarial conditions.

• Define principled abstractions for the skills and tools agents use, grounded in practical ways that security agents execute.

• Advance the science of agent design, including harnesses, scaffolding, planning, memory, tool use, and multi-step reasoning. Contribute novel techniques back to the field through publications and standards.

What You’ll Need:

• MS or PhD in computer science, computer engineering, or similar quantitative field.

• 10+ years of experience in data science, ML/DL, or AI with a focus on large-scale data problems.

• Hands-on expertise in modern LLM post-training techniques.

• Demonstrated research contributions to or experience building agentic systems.

• Strong evaluation discipline (designing, extending, or validating methodologies).

• A leadership style that values hands-on contributions at every level, including your own.

Ways to Stand Out:

• Hands-on background in offensive security, detection engineering, incident response, or threat intelligence applied research.

• Experience designing RL environments and synthetic data pipelines for agent tuning.

• Experience navigating regulatory, compliance, or audit conversations about AI systems, especially translating research into responsible deployment.

• History of mentoring and growing researchers in the security domain.

LI-Remote LI-RC1

Benefits of Working at CrowdStrike:

• Market leader in compensation and equity awards

• Comprehensive physical and mental wellness programs

• Competitive vacation and holidays for recharge

• Paid parental and adoption leaves

• Professional development opportunities for all employees regardless of level or role

• Employee Networks, geographic neighborhood groups, and volunteer opportunities to build connections

• Vibrant office culture with world class amenities

• Great Place to Work Certified™ across the globe

CrowdStrike is proud to be an equal opportunity employer. We are committed to fostering a culture of belonging where everyone is valued for who they are and empowered to succeed. We support veterans and individuals with disabilities through our affirmative action program.

CrowdStrike is committed to providing equal employment opportunity for all employees and applicants for employment. The Company does not discriminate in employment opportunities or practices on the basis of race, color, creed, ethnicity, religion, sex (including pregnancy or pregnancy-related medical conditions), sexual orientation, gender identity, marital or family status, veteran status, age, national origin, ancestry, physical disability (including HIV and AIDS), mental disability, medical condition, genetic information, membership or activity in a local human rights commission, status with regard to public assistance, or any other characteristic protected by law. We base all employment decisions--including recruitment, selection, training, compensation, benefits, discipline, promotions, transfers, lay-offs, return from lay-off, terminations and social/recreational programs--on valid job requirements.

CrowdStrike participates in the E-Verify program.

CrowdStrike, Inc. is committed to fair and equitable compensation practices. Placement within the pay range is dependent on a variety of factors including, but not limited to, relevant work experience, skills, certifications, job level, supervisory status, and location. The base salary range for this position for all U.S. candidates is $195,000 - $290,000 per year, with eligibility for bonuses, equity grants and a comprehensive benefits package that includes health insurance, 401k and paid time off.

For detailed information about the U.S. benefits package, please click here.

Expected Close Date of Job Posting is:10-14-2026