Founding Security Engineer

Schemata; San Francisco, Northern (CA, KY); Hybrid; USD 180,000 - 270,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Competitive salary

Meaningful equity stake

Comprehensive health coverage

401(k) plan

Paid parental leave

High visibility and real impact

Job summary

Schemata is hiring a Founding Security Engineer to build and secure our spatial intelligence platform. You will define security architecture across identity, authorization, tenancy, encryption, and auditing, while leading red team testing of AI systems and overseeing detection and response operations.

You will implement coverage for SAST/DAST, container security, and IaC policies, and drive evidence for NIST SP 800-53, SOC 2, FedRAMP and related compliance efforts.

Qualifications

• Strong experience in security engineering with hands-on ownership across platforms.
• Deep AWS security expertise focusing on IAM, VPC, KMS and threat detection.
• Experience writing Python to automate controls and tooling.

Responsibilities

• Own the security architecture across the platform, including identity, authorization, tenancy isolation, encryption, and audit logging.
• Red team AI systems to test prompts, jailbreaks, data poisoning, model extraction, and grounding model failures in 3D scenes.
• Implement continuous security monitoring: SAST/DAST, dependency and container scanning, secrets detection, IaC checks.
• Run detection and response: triage, investigation, containment, incident review, and drive durable improvements.
• Ensure compliance with NIST SP 800-53, SOC 2, FedRAMP, and POA&M tracking and remediation.

Skills

Security engineering

AWS security

Application security

Python automation

Container security

Kubernetes security

Threat modeling

Tools

Terraform

CI pipelines

SAST/DAST

Job description

Help us build the world's best spatial intelligence products

Founding Security Engineer

Location

Employment Type

Full time

Location Type

Hybrid

Department

About Schemata

At Schemata, we are transforming the $400 B virtual‑training and simulation market by fusing 3D computer vision, neural rendering and large multimodal models inside highly regulated industries. Our platform delivers photorealistic, intelligent 3D experiences, demanding robust spatial reasoning, high‑performance data pipelines and seamless integration between traditional graphics and AI‑driven perception.

Core Responsibilities

Own the security architecture: define and implement how identity, authorization, tenancy isolation, encryption and audit logging work across our platform, and review designs before they become expensive to change

Red team our AI systems: probe the LLM and spatial reasoning surfaces the way an adversary would through prompt injection, jailbreaks, tool‑use and agent abuse, retrieval and training data poisoning, model extraction, and the failure modes specific to grounding models in customer documents and 3D scenes..

Implement continuous security monitoring: own the security pipeline (SAST/DAST, dependency and container scanning, secrets detection, IaC policy checks) and the vulnerability management that follows from it.

Run detection and response: own the security monitoring pipeline day to day. Triage, investigation, containment and post‑incident review. Be the person who gets paged, and make each incident produce a durable change: a new detection, a closed gap, a corrected runbook.

Make sure we’re compliant: implement and evidence NIST SP 800-53 and SOC 2 controls, support FedRAMP and ATO efforts, and manage POA&M tracking and remediation.

Strong experience in security engineering, application security or cloud security with hands‑on implementation ownership, not purely policy or GRC.

Deep AWS security expertise: IAM design, VPC and network controls, KMS, GuardDuty/Security Hub, and least‑privilege at scale.

Strong applied knowledge of application security: authN/authZ design, common vulnerability classes, secure code review, threat modeling.

Ability to write real code (Python) to automate controls, evidence collection and tooling.

Working knowledge of at least one major compliance framework (NIST 800-53/RMF, FedRAMP, SOC 2, or ISO 27001) and the practical work of evidencing controls.

Container and Kubernetes security experience: image hardening, runtime policy, supply chain integrity.

Enough backend or infrastructure ability to be a genuine extra pair of hands outside security: shipping a service, writing a Terraform module, fixing a CI pipeline.

Clear communication with non‑security engineers and with customer security teams alike.

Nice to Have

Federal authorization experience: running or supporting an ATO, working with AOs and ISSOs, FISMA continuous monitoring.

Certifications such as CISSP, OSCP, CCSP, CAP, or GIAC equivalents.

Experience securing ML/AI systems: model supply chain, data governance, prompt injection and inference abuse.

Familiarity with DISA STIGs, NIST 800-171, CMMC or CUI handling requirements.

Experience being the first security hire at a startup and building the function from zero.

Defense, aerospace, energy or other regulated‑industry experience; active or ability to obtain U.S. security clearance.

Why Join Us?

Competitive salary that reflects your experience and track record

Meaningful equity stake in a high‑growth, venture‑backed defense tech startup, so you share in the upside you help create

Comprehensive health coverage: medical, dental, and vision insurance

401(k) plan

Paid parental leave

High visibility and real impact: Collaborate with world‑class engineers and researchers in a high‑ownership environment.

Experience the future of spatial intelligence