Security Lead

Chai Discovery; San Francisco (CA); On-site; USD 180,000 - 250,000; Full time

Job summary

Chai Discovery in San Francisco is seeking a security-focused leader to build and run our security function end to end, partnering with product and platform teams.

You will drive detection, response, and incident management, represent our posture to pharma CISOs, and implement controls across compute, data isolation, encryption, and vendor onboarding.

Life sciences experience is a bonus; deep technical excellence and business sense are required to keep pace with growth.

Qualifications

• 5+ years in security engineering and building or scaling security programs at high-growth companies.
• Ability to write targeted production code in Python and TypeScript.
• Startup or high-growth experience, working close to engineering teams.
• Credibility to represent Chai on calls with pharma CISOs.
• Comfort owning detection, response, and incident management end to end.
• Familiarity with SOC 2 and ISO 27001 as execution programs.

Responsibilities

• Drive and build the security function end to end.
• Represent Chai's security posture to partners and CISOs on reviews of compute architecture, tenant isolation, egress controls, encryption, and key management.
• Review systems like shared inference fleets and data isolation before build, shipping security controls for non-specialists.
• Automate compliance, onboarding, and vendor work to keep the program self-running.
• Support security across product and platform engineering as the company scales.

Skills

Security engineering

Python

TypeScript

Startup experience

CISOs liaison

Job description

About Chai Discovery

Chai builds the design suite for molecules. We train frontier models that learn the underlying foundations of biochemical structure and interaction, so scientists can move faster and pursue targets that other methods cannot reach.

AI is reinventing life sciences the same way it reinvented software engineering, and Chai is at the forefront of this shift. Leading pharmaceutical companies like Eli Lilly, Pfizer, and Novartis are rapidly adopting our platform to power their drug discovery programs.

Our mission is to accelerate progress towards new cures and better science, and there are countless interesting problems on the road ahead.

About the role

Security is what earns Chai the trust of the world's largest pharma companies. It's a precondition for the business. We're looking for someone to drive and build the security function end to end.

You'll represent Chai's security posture to our partners, sitting across from their CISOs and cloud security architects on reviews of our compute architecture, tenant isolation, egress controls, encryption, and key management. You'll drive the changes they surface back into our platform and infrastructure, keeping Chai ahead of new risks.

Just as importantly, you'll be the trusted security partner to our product and platform engineers, reviewing systems like our shared inference fleets and per-partner data isolation before they're built, shipping security controls that are tricky for non-specialists to get right, while automating compliance, onboarding, and vendor work so the program mostly runs itself.

Our models have moved beyond structure prediction into real therapeutic engineering, and the partnerships that come with that raise the bar every quarter.

About you

We index on judgment, breadth, and the instinct to build security in rather than bolt it on. The archetype is an engineer who specialized into security, thinks about the business as much as the threat model, and would rather partner with engineers than audit them. We look for:

• 5+ years in security engineering, having built or meaningfully improved a security program at a high-growth company -- you have intuition for what a 30-person startup needs versus a 1,000-person one
• ability to write targeted production code in python and typescript, not just scripts
• startup or high-growth experience, working close to engineering rather than at arm's length
• credibility and presence to represent Chai on calls with pharma CISOs
• comfort owning detection, response, and incident management end to end
• familiarity with SOC 2 and ISO 27001 as programs to run well, not boxes to check

Life sciences or other regulated-industry experience is a bonus. A background in biology is not required. What makes the difference is technical excellence, business sense, and grit.

We offer

The opportunity to work at the vanguard of AI research and frontier biology, with world-class people, on a mission that matters. We protect & promote a culture of high velocity and ownership. We compensate our team accordingly.