Founding Member: Systems Security Engineer

AI Security Assurance; Northern (KY); Hybrid; Full time

Job summary

AI Security Assurance is seeking a Founding Member: Systems Security Engineer to build core tooling for system security analysis. Currently, this position is not salaried but offers equity participation as the company seeks funding for secure systems.

The ideal candidate will have a strong background in systems security engineering, model-based approaches, and should be able to work independently. As a founding role, participation comes with the potential to contribute meaningfully to the startup's success.

Qualifications

• Experience with systems security engineering and security-analysis tools.
• Model-based systems/software engineering experience is required.
• Strong understanding of STPA applied to design and security analysis.

Responsibilities

• Design and build the whole-system analysis core of the company's tooling.
• Apply systems-theoretic and model-based methods to find security weaknesses.
• Help shape the research behind proposals for funded contracts.

Skills

Systems security engineering

Model-based systems/software engineering

STPA

Strong systems thinking

Ability to work independently

Job description

Founding Member: Systems Security Engineer

(Remote / U.S.-Based — founding-member role)

About Us

AI Security Assurance is an early-stage, remote-first startup on a mission to accelerate the delivery of trustworthy systems — systems proven secure and safe by design. We build automated tooling for whole-system security and safety assurance: it analyzes a system as it's actually built — including the interactions between components, where the most damaging design-level flaws hide — and produces the evidence that trustworthy systems require. Our work is grounded in Systems-Theoretic Process Analysis (STPA) and formal methods for security, following the NIST systems security engineering framework (SP 800-160). We're bootstrapped and pre-funding, building toward funded government R&D (DARPA, SBIR) and a commercial platform. We're assembling a founding team — people who want skin in the game.

The Opportunity — please read first

This is a founding-member role, not a salaried job today. We're looking for someone to help us build the company and win the funded research contracts that pay for the work. In place of a salary now, founding members share in the upside through equity / ownership participation; when we land a contract that funds the role, that contract compensates the work. We're honest about the risk — there is no guarantee of funding — and we're looking for people who want to build something real and share in its success.

The Role

As a founding Systems Security Engineer, you'll help design and build the whole-system analysis core of our tooling — applying systems-theoretic and model-based methods to find and mitigate design-level security and safety weaknesses across software and cyber-physical systems — and help shape the research behind our proposals.

What We’re Looking For

Must-haves:

• Experience with systems security engineering and security-analysis tools
• Model-based systems/software engineering and model-based software development (MBSE / MBSD)
• STPA (Systems-Theoretic Process Analysis), ideally STPA-Sec, applied to design and security analysis
• Strong systems thinking — reasoning about design-level security, not just code-level bugs
• Ability to work independently and wear multiple hats in an early-stage team
• Ability to work in the U.S. without sponsorship; willingness/ability to obtain a U.S. security clearance for future government work

Nice-to-haves:

• AI / LLM familiarity and modern development tools (helpful, not the core job)
• Formal methods exposure (theorem proving, formal verification)
• Threat modeling (STRIDE, etc.) and CWE/CVE familiarity
• Research, publications, or open-source work in systems or software security

Transparency Note: This is a founding-member position, not a paid role at this time. AI Security Assurance is bootstrapped and actively pursuing funding. Founding members join now to help build the company and win funded research contracts, participating through equity/ownership rather than salary initially; paid compensation begins when a contract funds the role. There is no guarantee of funding. We're looking for committed teammates who want to help build — and share in — what comes next.

EEO: Equal opportunity employer, including disability and protected veterans. AI Security Assurance operates a drug-free workplace.