Senior Security Engineer

Clera; San Francisco (CA); On-site; USD 130,000 - 225,000; Full time

Job summary

Clera is seeking the first full-time security engineer to build the security program from the ground up for an early-stage AI infrastructure company. You will work across product, infrastructure, compliance, and incident response to protect AI systems and sensitive data while supporting customer trust.

In this role, you will lead incident detection and response, develop a security roadmap, secure APIs and data systems, and own SOC 2 and related audits.

Qualifications

• 5+ years hands-on security engineering experience.
• Experience leading incidents from detection to postmortem.
• Experience with SOC 2 or similar frameworks.

Responsibilities

• Lead incident detection and response from alert to postmortem.
• Develop the security roadmap across product, cloud, and compliance.
• Secure APIs, platforms, and data systems via threat modeling and reviews.
• Build monitoring, SIEM/XDR, and incident response capabilities.
• Own SOC 2 and customer trust work, including audits.
• Partner with legal, engineering, and operations to enforce access controls.

Skills

Incident response

Infrastructure security

SOC 2

Threat modeling

SIEM/XDR

Identity controls

Red teaming

Data protection

Audit readiness

Job description

About the Role

As the first full-time security engineer at an early-stage AI infrastructure company, you will build and operate the security program from the ground up. You will work across product, infrastructure, compliance, and incident response to protect AI systems and sensitive data while supporting customer trust.

What You'll Do

• Lead incident detection and response from initial alert through investigation, postmortem, and lasting engineering improvements.
• Develop the security roadmap across product, cloud infrastructure, corporate security, incident response, and compliance.
• Secure APIs, platforms, and data systems through threat modeling, design and code reviews, identity controls, and secrets management.
• Build and operate monitoring, SIEM or XDR detection, and incident response capabilities, and investigate emerging threats.
• Own SOC 2 and customer trust work, including control design, security questionnaires, policy management, vendor reviews, and audits.
• Partner with legal, commercial, engineering, and operations teams to implement data access, provenance, permitted use, retention, deletion, isolation, and auditability controls.

What We're Looking For

• At least 5 years of hands-on security engineering experience in infrastructure security, detection, incident response, identity, or related areas.
• Experience leading incidents from detection and containment through root-cause analysis and follow-up work.
• Experience implementing or operating SOC 2 or a comparable security framework and translating requirements into technical and operational controls.
• Experience securing AI or machine learning infrastructure, agent execution environments, data platforms, or systems that handle untrusted or sensitive data.
• Experience with SIEM or XDR tooling, attack surface monitoring, threat modeling, authentication and authorization, and data protection controls.
• Offensive security experience, such as penetration testing, red teaming, bug bounty work, or vulnerability research, alongside recent hands-on engineering work.
• Strong communication and judgment when working with engineers, legal teams, auditors, customers, and operations.

Compensation & Benefits

Annual salary range: $130,000 to $225,000 USD. Visa sponsorship is available, with relocation support for qualified candidates.

Location

On-site in San Francisco, California, United States.