Staff Application Security Engineer

United States Digital Space LLC; United States; Hybrid; USD 240,000 - 300,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Up to four weeks of fully remote work per year

Job summary

United States Digital Space LLC is seeking a Staff Application Security Engineer to define the technical vision and lead the Application Security team. This role is crucial for securing the company platform, with a hybrid working environment in San Francisco.

Applicants should have 8+ years of experience in Application Security and strong knowledge of AI security, along with the ability to lead technical initiatives. The expected salary ranges from $240,000 to $300,000, with additional compensation possibilities.

Qualifications

• 8+ years in Application Security or software engineering focused on security.
• Proven track record in technical leadership and team mentorship.
• Experience securing agentic architectures and evaluating adversarial AI vectors.

Responsibilities

• Define technical vision for Application Security team.
• Establish technical standards across the engineering organization.
• Architect secure AI/ML workflows applying cutting-edge practices.

Skills

Application Security

Technical Leadership

AI Security

Python

Go

Cloud Security

Tools

Kubernetes

gRPC

GraphQL

Job description

Why join us

the company is the intelligent finance platform that enables companies to spend smarter and move faster in more than 200 markets. By combining global corporate cards and banking with intuitive spend management, bill pay, and travel software, the company enables founders and finance teams to accelerate operations, gain real‑time visibility, and control spend effortlessly. the company’s AI‑native automation and world‑class service eliminate manual expense and accounting tasks for customers so they can focus on what matters most. Tens of thousands of the world's best companies run on the company, including DoorDash, Coinbase, Robinhood, Zoom, Plaid, Reddit, and SeatGeek.

Working at the company allows you to push your limits, challenge the status quo, and collaborate with some of the brightest minds in the industry. We’re committed to building a diverse team and inclusive culture and believe your potential should only be limited by how big you can dream. We make this a reality by empowering you with the tools, resources, and support you need to grow your career.

Engineering at the company

Engineering at the company is about building systems that scale with speed and intention. Our teams span Software, Data, Security, and IT, and operate with high autonomy and deep collaboration. We tackle hard technical problems, own our outcomes, and push for excellence at every level — from architecture to deployment. It’s an environment where engineering is a craft, and builders become leaders.

What you’ll do

As a Staff Application Security Engineer, you will define the technical vision and long‑term security architecture for the the company platform. You will serve as the technical leader for the Application Security team, driving the strategic direction of our secure product lifecycle and vulnerability management programs. This role is highly cross‑functional, requiring you to establish deep, collaborative connections across the broader engineering organization to embed security seamlessly into high‑velocity development pipelines.

We're looking for individuals with a solid foundation in penetration testing and a curiosity for finding vulnerabilities in complex systems. You should have experience identifying and documenting vulnerabilities across common vulnerability classes and be able to communicate their risk clearly to engineering and product teams.

the company is pioneering the next wave of AI‑driven financial services for dynamic, high‑impact companies like Coinbase, Robinhood, and Anthropic. As we integrate AI across our product suite, you will be at the forefront of securing our novel AI implementations, identifying emerging attack vectors in agentic‑powered features, and hardening distributed LLM architectures. You will mentor team members, raise the technical bar for the organization, and partner with product and engineering leaders to build AI capabilities our customers can trust with their critical financial operations.

Where you’ll work

This role will be based in our San Francisco office. We are a hybrid environment that combines the energy and connections of being in the office with the benefits and flexibility of working from home. We currently require 3 days per week in the office - Monday, Wednesday and Thursday. As a perk, we also have up to four weeks per year of fully remote work!

Responsibilities

• Lead the technical vision and strategic roadmap for the Application Security team, aligning security objectives with the company's enterprise growth and high‑velocity engineering metrics.
• Establish technical standards and secure defaults across the entire engineering organization, fostering a culture of collaborative security excellence and bridging product platforms, infra, and trust.
• Architect and secure novel AI/ML and agentic workflows, applying cutting‑edge practices to mitigate risks such as prompt injection, model manipulation, and data poisoning.
• Mentor and coach engineers within the team and across the broader organization, guiding technical growth, helping individuals level up their security expertise, and accelerating team delivery.
• Drive proactive vulnerability discovery and offensive security testing strategies, executing complex attack chains to demonstrate business impact and prioritize cross‑functional remediation.
• Partner with Product Platform, Cloud Infrastructure, and Data engineering teams to ensure core primitives, APIs, and microservices are secure by default from design to deployment.

Requirements

• 8+ years of experience in Application Security, Product Security, or software engineering with a primary focus on offensive and defensive application security.
• Proven track record of technical leadership and team mentorship on complex, multi‑quarter security engineering initiatives in a fast‑paced environment.
• Deep proficiency and technical expertise in AI security, including hands‑on experience securing agentic architectures, LLM gateways, and evaluating adversarial AI vectors.
• Strong systems‑thinking capabilities with extensive experience defining secure product development lifecycles, threat modeling complex topologies, and cloud‑native container security (AWS, Kubernetes).
• Proficiency in Python, Go, or similar languages to architect internal tooling, pipeline automation, and advanced detection/scanning engines.
• Exceptional written and verbal communication skills, with a demonstrated ability to navigate ambiguity, influence technical leaders, and manage up and out across EPD organizations.

Bonus Points

• Experience with Kotlin, gRPC, GraphQL, Kubernetes
• Previous experience in building and scaling security teams
• Experience with securing distributed systems in AWS and cloud environments
• Contributions to the wider technical community — open source, public research, CTF participation, blogging, CVEs, or presentations
• Experience submitting to bug bounty or responsible disclosure programs
• Published AI security research or contributions to AI security frameworks

Compensation

The expected salary range for this role is $240,000 USD - $300,000 USD. However, the starting base pay will depend on a number of factors including the candidate’s location, skills, experience, market demands, and internal pay parity. Depending on the position offered, equity and other forms of compensation may be provided as part of a total compensation package.