Staff Engineer, Enterprise Security & AI Risk

A16z; San Francisco (CA); On-site; USD 243,000 - 284,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Health insurance

Dental insurance

Vision insurance

Disability insurance

Life insurance

401K plan

Vacation

Sick leave

Carry program eligibility

Bonus programs

Job summary

a16z is hiring a Staff Engineer to own enterprise security, including insider risk, data protection, and secure AI adoption across the firm. The role involves setting strategy, selecting tooling, and building governance, with an in-office presence 2 days a week in San Francisco and occasional days in Menlo Park.

You will work closely with Head of Cybersecurity, Security Engineering, IT, Legal, and Compliance to protect sensitive data and ensure safe AI use while enabling business momentum.

Qualifications

• 7+ years of experience in security engineering or enterprise security roles.
• Deep expertise across Identity and Access Management, authentication and authorization, DLP and insider risk tooling, SaaS security posture management, and endpoint management
• A track record of owning security programs like DLP, insider risk, or SaaS security end to end: setting strategy, selecting vendors, driving implementation across teams you don't control, and being accountable for the outcome
• Hands-on experience securing AI tools and agentic systems in an enterprise environment, including data flow controls, model and tool access governance, and evaluating AI vendors
• Experience with modern enterprise infrastructure and SaaS ecosystems, including Google Workspace, Okta, MDM solutions, SSPM, zero trust architecture, and cloud-native environments

Responsibilities

• Own insider risk and data protection program end to end: select and implement DLP platform and AI-augmented DLP tooling.
• Drive secure AI adoption across the firm with guardrails and governance for rapid, safe use of AI.
• Own SaaS security posture across vendors: inventory, SSPM, baselines, monitoring for risky changes.
• Set authentication/authorization policy with IT (Okta, device trust, MFA, access reviews).
• Manage EDR across macOS, Windows, iOS; collaborate on MDM policies.
• Own joiner/mover/leaver lifecycle: access revocation, data holds, exfiltration checks.
• Run and improve vendor security due diligence for new tools.
• Monitor, investigate, and respond to data exfiltration and insider risk events with IR and Legal.
• Participate in Security team on-call rotation.

Skills

Identity & Access Management

DLP & insider risk tooling

SaaS security

Endpoint management

AI security

Zero trust

Vendor security assessments

Risk translation

Cross-team collaboration

Tools

Okta

MDM solutions

Google Workspace

SSPM

Job description

a16z is hiring a Staff Engineer to own enterprise security, including insider risk, data protection, and secure AI adoption across the firm. The role involves setting strategy, selecting tooling, and building governance, with an in-office presence 2 days a week in San Francisco and occasional days in Menlo Park.

You will work closely with Head of Cybersecurity, Security Engineering, IT, Legal, and Compliance to protect sensitive data and ensure safe AI use while enabling business momentum.