Head of Security

Autopoiesis Sciences, Inc.; San Francisco (CA); On-site; USD 250,000 - 360,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Competitive salary

Meaningful equity

Competitive benefits

Job summary

Autopoiesis Sciences, Inc. in San Francisco is seeking a Head of Security to own how we protect people and data across our autonomous research platform. The role requires deep security leadership, incident response experience, and the ability to shape risk strategy at a fast‑growing SaaS/AI company.

You’ll design a robust compliance program, secure AI systems and agents, and work with leadership to ensure security is built into architecture from the start. In‑person, senior responsibilities.

Qualifications

• Senior security leadership experience in a fast-growing SaaS/AI company.
• Proven track record with SOC 2 Type II and ISO 27001 programs.
• Hands-on threat modeling for AI/agent systems and sandboxing.

Responsibilities

• Own security end to end: strategy, roadmap, and risk decisions.
• Lead and extend the compliance program across frameworks.
• Secure AI systems and autonomous agents, incl. sandboxing and access controls.
• Protect customer and research data with strong encryption and tenancy isolation.

Skills

Security leadership

SOC 2 Type II

ISO 27001

Threat modeling AI

AI/agent security

Penetration testing

FedRAMP/NIST

Security program scaling

Data privacy

Job description

We’re building AI capable of autonomous scientific discovery. Our mission is to reach a world where discovery is no longer bottlenecked by the number of human scientists alive to pursue it.

Reinforcement learning has taken models remarkably far in math and code, where an answer can be checked and a model can learn from ten thousand attempts. Science offers no such reward function. The judgment a scientist exercises before any result is certain, which hypothesis is worth the month, what the evidence actually supports, when to abandon a promising dead end, has never been captured at scale. That missing signal is the real bottleneck, and it’s the one we build for: the environments, datasets, and expert reasoning that teach models to do science, not just recite it.

That work is already in the world. We built and operate Aristotle, an AI research partner trusted by thousands of researchers at some of the most demanding institutions in science, including GSK, Pfizer, AstraZeneca, Merck, Stanford, MIT, Harvard, and the FDA. Alongside it, we’re developing autonomous research systems that take on long-horizon scientific problems end to end.

Backed by leading investors and advised by the scientists who built the field, Autopoiesis is redefining what discovery looks like in the most important industry of the century.

About the role

We’re looking for a Head of Security to own how Autopoiesis protects the people and data that trust us. The unpublished research, proprietary data, and experimental workflows people bring to us are among the most valuable information in the world, and they stay only with a company they trust completely.

You’ll inherit a strong foundation and be expected to take it much further. The job is to decide what we protect, what risks we accept, and what we build next: setting the strategy, keeping our compliance program rigorous, and making sure security is designed into our systems rather than added afterward. That includes a newer class of problems, autonomous agents that run code, touch data, and act on their own, where the playbook is still being written.

This is a senior role, and it calls for someone who has been through it before. You’ve handled real incidents, sat across from a customer’s security team, and made the call when the right answer wasn’t obvious. You’re technical enough to read an architecture and challenge it, and your judgment carries weight in every room that matters, from the leadership team to the customer’s CISO. Security here is a core part of how we decide what to build and how we ship it, and you’ll have the authority and budget to match.

Key responsibilities

• Own security end to end. Set the strategy, evolve the roadmap, and make the calls on risk, from threat model to incident response.
• Run and extend our compliance program. Keep our existing certifications and standards airtight, and take on the frameworks customers ask for next, including more demanding government-grade ones.
• Secure AI systems and autonomous agents. Design the sandboxing, isolation, and access boundaries for systems that run code, touch data, and act on their own, and defend against prompt injection and credential exposure.
• Protect customer and research data. Raise the standard for encryption, tenant isolation, retention, and training policy, and make private and VPC deployments a product we can stand behind.
• Earn customer trust. Lead security reviews, questionnaires, and penetration tests, and be the person customers’ security teams want to talk to.

Preferred qualifications

• Experience leading security at a fast-growing SaaS, AI, or developer-tools company as its customers and deployments grew more demanding.
• Deep working knowledge of SOC 2 Type II and ISO 27001, having operated and renewed these programs, not just passed an audit once.
• Hands‑on experience threat modeling AI and agent systems: sandboxing, prompt injection, and managing credentials and repository or data access.
• A track record of closing large, security-sensitive deals, including questionnaires, third‑party pen tests, and VPC or self‑hosted deployments.
• Familiarity with regulated and government‑adjacent environments, such as FedRAMP, NIST 800-53 and 800-171, and CUI. Having taken a product through one of these before is a strong plus.
• Experience scaling a security program and team as a company grows.
• Familiarity with scientific domains or a genuine curiosity about them, especially the value of research data as intellectual property.

Our values

The mission is the only thing. Everything we do either moves discovery forward or it doesn’t, and anything that doesn’t is a day we won’t get back. We hold every decision, every hire, and every week against that one question. The mission is hard enough that nothing else earns a place next to it.

Bet on the process, not the outcome. We think in expected value. A good decision made on the best available information is a good decision even when the result disappoints, and a lucky win off a bad process teaches us nothing. We reward sound reasoning, run the bets worth running, and judge ourselves by how well we chose, not only by how it landed.

Don’t compete, be uncontested. Competition is a symptom of a weak position. We don’t win by racing others down a crowded path, we win by building something no one else can, in a direction no one else is looking. When we find ourselves fighting for scraps, we’ve made a strategic mistake upstream.

Own it end to end. There are no bystanders here. We spot what’s broken, take full responsibility for a strong result, and see it through. We’re self‑driven, own our mistakes plainly, and feel deep responsibility for what we’re building.

Where we work

We are hiring for this position in our San Francisco office. We are in person 5 days a week.

What we offer

This role offers competitive salary, meaningful equity, and competitive benefits, along with the resources and support to lead security at a company where it matters more than almost anywhere. You’ll have unusual freedom to chase hard problems, which also means we’ll expect a lot.

Most importantly, you’ll protect the work of getting AI to make real scientific discoveries. If you want to do your life’s work with us, even if you don’t meet every requirement.

Application process

Due to the high volume of automated applications, we only accept applications through LinkedIn as it helps us connect with genuine candidates. We have systems in place to detect automated submissions and strongly advise against using bots or automated tools in your application process. Please be human in your approach.

Equal opportunity

Autopoiesis Sciences, Inc. is an equal opportunity employer committed to diversity and inclusion. We welcome applications from all qualified candidates regardless of race, gender, age, religion, sexual orientation, or any other legally protected characteristics.