Principal AI Security Engineer

Cerebras; Sunnyvale (CA); On-site; USD 260,000 - 380,000; Full time

Job summary

Cerebras Systems in Sunnyvale, CA, is seeking a Principal AI Security Engineer to lead hands-on security for enterprise IT, AI platforms, and agentic systems. You will design and build security controls for training, inference, model serving, and customer workloads, working across product, cloud, identity, runtime, data, and developer platforms to protect sensitive data, models, tools, and control planes.

This principal IC role turns ambiguous AI and platform security risks into practical

Qualifications

• 10+ years in security engineering, platform/security roles.
• Hands-on Python and another production language.
• Experience designing, operating, and improving security controls.
• Strong AWS cloud security experience: IAM, networking, logging, secrets.
• Deep understanding of identity and access systems (SSO, MFA, OAuth).
• Practical security in runtime environments: containers, Kubernetes, isolated workloads.
• Familiarity with AI security, LLM security, agentic workflows, MCPs, prompt injection.
• Ability to assess cross-system risk across identity, data, models, tools, networks, workflows.
• Strong written communication to influence senior technical stakeholders.

Responsibilities

• Define security architecture and build controls for AI platforms and workflows.
• Develop reusable AI security patterns for identity, authorization, and tool access.
• Design runtime controls to limit execution and data exposure.
• Build security capabilities as code using IaC, configuration as code, policy as code, GitOps, CI/CD.
• Define secure development patterns for AI systems, prompts, tools, models, and releases.
• Automate security reviews, policy checks, evidence collection, and remediation.
• Instrument AI and platform activity with telemetry, audit logs, and anomaly signals.
• Lead hands-on security reviews and influence architecture with practical design changes.

Skills

Security engineering

Python

Other production language

Security controls design

Cloud security AWS

Identity and access

Container security

Kubernetes security

AI security

LLM security

Agentic workflows

Risk assessment

Communication

Job description

Cerebras Systems builds the world's largest AI chip, 56 times larger than GPUs. This architecture allows Cerebras to deliver industry-leading training and inference speeds; over 10 times faster than GPU-based hyperscale cloud inference services.

This order of magnitude increase in speed is transforming the user experience of AI applications, unlocking real-time iteration and increasing intelligence via additional agentic computation.

Cerebras works with the leading model labs, global enterprises, and cutting-edge AI-native startups. OpenAI recently announced a multi-year partnership with Cerebras, to deploy 750 megawatts of scale, transforming key workloads with ultra high-speed inference.

About The Role

Cerebras is seeking a Principal AI Security Engineer to lead hands‑on security engineering for enterprise IT, infrastructure, AI platforms, and agentic systems.

In this role, you will design and build security controls for systems that support training, inference, model serving, customer workloads, internal automation, and AI‑assisted development. You will work across product, cloud, infrastructure, identity, runtime, data, and developer platforms to protect sensitive data, enterprise and customer environments, models, tools, agents, and control planes.

This is a principal IC role for someone who can turn ambiguous AI and platform security risks into practical architecture, reusable controls, and production‑ready systems that teams can adopt by default.

Responsibilities

• Define security architecture and build controls for AI platforms, training and inference workflows, model‑serving systems, customer workloads, developer workflows, and agentic
• Develop reusable AI and agent security patterns for identity, authorization, delegated authority, scoped tool access, MCPs, connectors, secrets, approvals, isolation, auditability, and
• Design runtime controls that constrain execution, access, data exposure, model and tool interaction, and blast radius.
• Build security capabilities as code using infrastructure as code, configuration as code, policy as code, GitOps, CI/CD, and automated validation.
• Define secure development patterns for AI systems, agents, prompts, tools, models, policies, evaluations, releases, and rollback.
• Automate security reviews, policy checks, evidence collection, control validation, and remediation
• Instrument AI, agent, and platform activity with telemetry, traceability, policy decisions, audit logs, anomaly signals, and response workflows.
• Lead hands‑on security reviews and influence product, platform, infrastructure, and security architecture through practical design changes and reusable controls.

Skills And Qualifications

• 10+ years of experience in security engineering, platform security, infrastructure security, product security, or related technical security roles.
• Strong hands‑on engineering ability in Python and at least one additional production
• Experience designing, building, operating, and improving security controls as
• Strong cloud and infrastructure security experience, preferably with AWS, including IAM, networking, secrets management, logging, and cloud-native control planes.
• Deep understanding of identity and access systems, including SSO, MFA, OAuth, service accounts, workload identity, authorization, privileged access, and least privilege.
• Practical experience securing runtime environments such as containers, Kubernetes, isolated workloads, secure development environments, distributed compute platforms, or production service infrastructure.
• Familiarity with AI security, LLM application security, agentic workflows, MCPs, prompt injection, autonomous coding agents, or AI platform security.
• Ability to reason about cross‑system risk involving identity, data, models, tools, networks, workflows, approvals, and automation.
• Strong written communication skills and the ability to influence senior technical stakeholders across Security, Product, IT, Infrastructure, and Engineering.

Relevant Experience

We do not expect every candidate to have worked across all of these areas, but we value depth in several:

• AI, ML, training, inference, model‑serving, or large‑scale compute
• Coding agents, agent platforms, MCP servers, internal developer platforms, or AI‑assisted development environments.
• Workload identity, secrets brokers, token brokers, short‑lived credentials, privileged access, or zero‑standing‑privilege architectures.
• Policy‑as‑code, authorization services, runtime enforcement layers, or security control
• Software delivery security, including source control, CI/CD, build systems, artifacts, provenance, signing, and release gates.
• Detection, investigation, and response workflows for cloud, infrastructure, identity, AI, or agent

What Success Looks Like

Success in this role means shaping how Cerebras secures the systems behind AI training, inference, model serving, customer workloads, and agentic automation. You will turn emerging AI and agent risks into reusable security architecture, safer identity and authorization models, scoped tool access, runtime containment, secure software delivery paths, automated policy validation, high‑signal telemetry, and controls that engineering teams can adopt by default.

Why Join Cerebras

About

People who are serious about software make their own hardware. At Cerebras, we have built a breakthrough architecture that is unlocking new opportunities for the AI industry. With dozens of model releases and rapid growth, we’ve reached an inflection point in our business. Members of our team tell us there are five main reasons they joined Cerebras:

• Build a breakthrough AI platform beyond the constraints of the GPU.
• Publish and open source their cutting‑edge AI research.
• Work on one of the fastest AI supercomputers in the world.
• Enjoy job stability with startup vitality.
• Our simple, non‑corporate work culture that respects individual beliefs.

Find out more about what it's like to work at Cerebras here!

Cerebras Systems is committed to creating an equal and diverse environment and is proud to be an equal opportunity employer. We celebrate different backgrounds, perspectives, and skills. We believe inclusive teams build better products and companies. We try every day to build a work environment that empowers people to do their best work through continuous learning, growth and support of those around them.