Senior Security Software Engineer (AI Native)

Palosade Inc; Palo Alto (CA); On-site; USD 210,000 - 340,000; Full time

Job summary

Palosade Inc is hiring an experienced security-minded engineer to build AI-native tools for cybersecurity. You will own security features end-to-end, review AI-produced code, and shape the product roadmap with founders.

The role demands 8+ years of software experience, strong OWASP knowledge, and hands-on security with modern cloud platforms. Expect collaboration with a small, senior team and a bold, startup culture focused on shipping secure AI solutions.

Qualifications

• 3+ years hands-on in application or product security: design reviews, threat modeling, code review, pen testing, or tooling.
• Strong knowledge of OWASP Top 10 (web, API, and LLM), secure SDLC, and software supply chain security.
• 8+ years overall software experience, shipping production systems as an engineer or architect.
• Fluent in TypeScript/JavaScript and at least one backend language (Python/Go/Java).
• Experience designing and running services on AWS, GCP, or Azure.

Responsibilities

• Research security problems customers face and turn them into product ideas using AI to explore, prototype, and test assumptions.
• Brainstorm and shape features with the founders, then own them end to end: spec, design, implementation, testing, and release.
• Build with AI coding agents and AI-native SDLC frameworks, including agent personas, sub-agents, and parallel work streams.
• Design and ship LLM-powered capabilities in our product: agents, tools, evals, and guardrails.
• Bring an attacker's eye to everything: threat-model features, review AI-generated code for security and correctness, and own what ships.
• Evolve architecture for scale, reliability, and security, and keep CI/CD, testing, and deployments healthy.
• Talk to customers and design partners; your security expertise will help them and sharpen our roadmap.
• Help set the engineering culture and practices for an AI-native team as we grow.

Skills

Application security

Threat modeling

Code review

Secure SDLC

Software supply chain security

CI/CD security

Security tooling

Tools

AWS

GCP

Azure

Job description

About Palosade

At Palosade, we are passionate about cybersecurity and AI. We believe that we are at the cusp of a massive technology shift which will leveraged by good and evil. In the upcoming evolution of cybercrime, enterprises will be left behind - they have the problem, but don't have the resources to solve the problem. We want to be a the forefront at providing AI first tools to mid enterprises to scale, fight cybercrime, protect and grow their businesses.

What you'll do

• Research security problems our customers face and turn them into product ideas, using AI to explore the space, prototype options, and test assumptions quickly
• Brainstorm and shape features with the founders, then own them end to end: spec, design, implementation, testing, and release
• Build with AI coding agents (Claude Code, Cursor, or similar) and AI-native SDLC frameworks such as Superpowers, BMAD, and GSD, including agent personas, sub-agents, and parallel work streams
• Design and ship LLM-powered capabilities in our product: agents, tools, evals, and guardrails
• Bring an attacker's eye to everything: threat-model features, review AI-generated code for security and correctness, and own what ships regardless of who or what wrote it
• Evolve our architecture for scale, reliability, and security, and keep CI/CD, testing, and deployments healthy
• Talk to customers and design partners; your security expertise will help them and sharpen our roadmap
• Help set the engineering culture and practices for an AI-native team as we grow

Who you are

Application security depth

• 3+ years hands-on in application or product security: secure design reviews, threat modeling, code review, pen testing, or building AppSec tooling
• Strong command of OWASP Top 10 (web, API, and LLM), secure SDLC, and software supply chain security
• Working knowledge of SAST, DAST, SCA, secrets scanning, and cloud security posture, and their limits

Engineering background

• 8+ years overall, including meaningful time as a software engineer or architect shipping production systems
• Fluent in TypeScript/JavaScript and at least one backend language (Python, Go, or Java)
• Experience designing and running services on AWS, GCP, or Azure
• Comfortable across the stack; you don't need to write every line by hand, but you can read, judge, and fix any of it

Builder and startup mindset

• You've built something from zero: a product, an internal platform, an open-source project, or a startup
• You're comfortable with ambiguity, make good calls with incomplete information, and bias toward shipping
• You care about customers and outcomes more than titles or process
• You communicate clearly in writing and enjoy working closely with a small, senior team

AI-native ways of working

• You research, brainstorm, and ship features with AI coding agents (Claude Code, Cursor, Codex, or similar), and know when to step in by hand
• Hands-on with AI-native SDLC frameworks such as Superpowers, BMAD, or GSD, including sub-agents and parallel work streams
• You've shipped LLM-powered features in production: prompt and context engineering, RAG, tool use, and evals
• You review AI output with a security-first eye and design against LLM risks like prompt injection and data leakage

Nice to have

• Prior startup or founding-engineer experience
• Background at a security vendor, or as a security practitioner serving mid-sized companies
• Security certifications (OSCP, OSWE, GWAPT, CSSLP) or published research, CVEs, or conference talks
• Open-source contributions, especially security tools or agent workflows