Security Lead, Product and Infrastructure (InfoSec)

River; Palo Alto (CA); On-site; USD 200,000 - 420,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Health, dental, and vision insurance

Unlimited PTO

Relocation assistance

Job summary

River AI is seeking a deeply technical Security Lead to build and lead security across product and infrastructure. You will protect model weights, data pipelines, and research clusters while enabling rapid frontier AI development.

This is the first security hire, combining hands-on engineering leadership with strategic security program development. You will own incident response, detection, and compliance roadmaps, partnering with research and engineering teams to embed security into the SDLC

Qualifications

• 10+ years in security with technology industry experience.
• First or early security executive experience in a high-velocity environment.
• Expertise in two or more areas: detection engineering, incident response, digital forensics, infrastructure security, product/security, or secure software development.
• Experience securing cloud-native, large-scale distributed systems, container/VM environments, and HPC clusters.
• Proven ability to build and ship security tooling or research projects (internal platforms, OSS, or commercial products).
• Strong cross-functional presence: translate risk for execs, partner with researchers on threat models, review code/architecture.
• Interested in AI safety, alignment, and AI model/agent security challenges.

Responsibilities

• Build the security function from first principles and scale end-to-end security operations.
• Protect proprietary model weights, data pipelines, research clusters, and source code.
• Design lightweight, automated security controls and secure-by-default infrastructure.
• Integrate security with IT and privacy engineering for a seamless employee experience.
• Drive security research and tooling, exploring AI-enabled vulnerability discovery and defense.
• Lead external security communication with customers, regulators, and boards; drive compliance roadmap.
• Recruit and mentor security engineers and researchers to raise the security bar across the org.

Skills

Security leadership

Strategy development

Incident response

Cloud security

Distributed systems security

Secure software development

Executive communication

AI security understanding

Job description

Security Lead, Product and Infrastructure (InfoSec)

At River AI, our mission is to create personal AI owned and shaped by each individual. To achieve this, we are rewriting the entire stack from scratch: personal hardware for local inference, bespoke training infrastructure, next-generation UIs, and frontier deep learning research.

Who we are

We are scientists, engineers, and builders from the industry's top tech companies and AI labs. We bring a proven track record of scaling consumer systems for hundreds of millions of users and architecting the pre-training infrastructure behind today's frontier models.

About the Role

We are seeking a deeply technical, operationally rigorous Security lead to build and lead security from the ground up. As our first security hire, you will define how we protect our research infrastructure, model weights, corporate assets, and customer-facing platform—without slowing the pace of frontier AI development.

This role calls for a blend of hands-on engineering leadership, program development, and strategic vision. You will be expected to stand up world-class capabilities across cybersecurity, detection and response, product security, and operational security, while treating security as an enabler of development rather than a bottleneck.

What You’ll Do

• Build the security function from first principles. Architect and scale our end-to-end security operation—encompassing product and infrastructure security, detection engineering, incident response, GRC, and workplace security.
• Protect the crown jewels. Secure our most critical assets: proprietary model weights, training data pipelines, research clusters, and source code against sophisticated adversaries actively targeting AI intellectual property.
• Move at the speed of research. Design lightweight, automated security controls and secure-by-default infrastructure that empower developers to experiment safely, avoiding bureaucratic workflows..
• Integrate security, IT, and privacy engineering. Own corporate IT, identity and access management, and privacy engineering to ensure a seamless, secure employee experience.
• Drive security research and tooling. Explore how AI capabilities can transform vulnerability discovery, code analysis, and defensive operations. Explore how products can be better secured.
• Own the trust narrative. Serve as the external face of security to enterprise customers, regulators, board members, and government partners; lead the compliance roadmap (SOC 2, ISO 27001, FedRAMP, etc.) to unblock commercial and public-sector adoption.
• Build an elite team. Recruit and mentor high-performing security engineers, operators, and researchers who automate repetitive work, embed security into the SDLC, and raise the bar for the entire industry.

Skills & Qualifications

Minimum Qualifications:

• 10+ years in security with significant experience with a technology company, AI preferred.
• Proven track record as a first or early security executive in a high-velocity, high-stakes environment; comfortable setting strategy while remaining close to tooling, architecture, and incident command.
• Deep expertise in two or more of: detection engineering, incident response, digital forensics, infrastructure security, product/application security, operational security, or secure software development.
• Direct experience securing cloud-native, large-scale distributed systems, container/VM environments, and high-performance compute clusters.
• Demonstrated ability to build and ship security tooling or research projects—whether internal platforms, open-source tools, or commercial security products.
• Strong cross-functional presence: you can translate technical risk for executes, partner with research leads on novel threat models, and review code or architecture.
• Intellectually curious about AI safety, alignment, and the unique security challenges of AI model and AI agent development.

Preferred Qualifications: (We encourage you to apply even if you don't meet all of these)

• Experience with model-weight protection, secure multi-party compute, confidential computing, or supply-chain security at an AI lab or research organization.
• Published research, conference talks, or open-source contributions in security engineering or defensive operations.
• Experience with startups or venture-backed companies.
• Compensation: Depending on experience and skills the expected base pay is $200,000 - $420,000 USD per year, plus equity.
• Benefits: Comprehensive health, dental, and vision insurance; unlimited PTO; and relocation assistance as needed.
• Visa Sponsorship: We sponsor visas and are committed to supporting the process for the right candidate.

Voluntary Self-Identification

For government reporting purposes, we ask candidates to respond to the below self-identification survey.Completion of the form is entirely voluntary. Whatever your decision, it will not be considered in the hiringprocess or thereafter. Any information that you do provide will be recorded and maintained in aconfidential file.

As set forth in River AI Inc.'s Equal Employment Opportunity policy,we do not discriminate on the basis of any protected group status under any applicable law.

If you believe you belong to any of the categories of protected veterans listed below, please indicate by making the appropriate selection.As a government contractor subject to the Vietnam Era Veterans Readjustment Assistance Act (VEVRAA), we request this information in order to measurethe effectiveness of the outreach and positive recruitment efforts we undertake pursuant to VEVRAA. Classification of protected categoriesis as follows:

A "disabled veteran" is one of the following: a veteran of the U.S. military, ground, naval or air service who is entitled to compensation (or who but for the receipt of military retired pay would be entitled to compensation) under laws administered by the Secretary of Veterans Affairs; or a person who was discharged or released from active duty because of a service-connected disability.

A "recently separated veteran" means any veteran during the three-year period beginning on the date of such veteran's discharge or release from active duty in the U.S. military, ground, naval, or air service.

An "active duty wartime or campaign badge veteran" means a veteran who served on active duty in the U.S. military, ground, naval or air service during a war, or in a campaign or expedition for which a campaign badge has been authorized under the laws administered by the Department of Defense.

An "Armed forces service medal veteran" means a veteran who, while serving on active duty in the U.S. military, ground, naval or air service, participated in a United States military operation for which an Armed Forces service medal was awarded pursuant to Executive Order 12985.