Staff Research Engineer, AI/ML & Cybersecurity

Ephapsys; San Francisco (CA); On-site; USD 180,000 - 280,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Equity participation

Job summary

Ephapsys seeks a Staff Research Engineer to advance the SDK and platform, focusing on production-grade AI systems, secure model deployment, and governance. You will work with the founder to translate AI research into hardened, scalable infrastructure.

You will lead AI/ML security, threat modeling, and secure-by-design architecture, while building scalable MLOps pipelines and cryptographic safeguards for trusted AI agents.

Qualifications

• PhD or equivalent in Computer Science, AI, or Cybersecurity.
• Strong Python engineering skills.
• Experience deploying production ML systems.
• Hands-on with LLMs, fine-tuning, RAG, or agent frameworks.
• Familiarity with PyTorch or TensorFlow.
• Experience with cloud platforms (Azure, GCP, AWS).
• Understanding AI security risks (model extraction, prompt injection, data poisoning).

Responsibilities

• Architect, maintain, and evolve the Ephapsys SDK (Python-based).
• Implement and test neural interaction operators within modern ML frameworks.
• Design secure AI agent deployment pipelines.
• Build modular, production-grade ML components.
• Improve inference performance, observability, and reproducibility.
• Develop model evaluation, benchmarking, and stress-testing workflows.
• Conduct threat modeling for AI systems and neural modulation mechanisms.
• Design runtime integrity verification mechanisms.
• Secure model artifacts, modulation parameters, and inference endpoints.
• Implement cryptographic binding of model state and identity.
• Evaluate attack surfaces in edge and cloud deployments.
• Contribute to secure-by-design SDK architecture.
• Build secure CI/CD pipelines for AI systems.
• Design logging, monitoring, and tamper-detection mechanisms.

Skills

Python engineering

Production ML systems

LLMs

Security

Independent reasoning

Education

PhD or equivalent in Computer Science, AI, or Cybersecurity

Tools

PyTorch

TensorFlow

Job description

About Ephapsys

We leverage ephaptic coupling to pioneer a new paradigm for empowering and governing autonomous AI agents across industries.

About Ephapsys

We leverage ephaptic coupling to pioneer a new paradigm for empowering and governing autonomous AI agents across industries.

As billions of agents spread across clouds, devices, and biological substrates, Ephapsys aims to be the decentralized identity and integrity layer that keeps every agent trusted, safe, and under control.

The Role

We are seeking a Staff Research Engineer, AI/ML & Cybersecurity to serve as a core technical pillar in the development of the Ephapsys SDK and platform.

This is a senior individual contributor role focused on production-grade AI systems, secure model deployment, AI governance mechanisms, threat modeling for neural systems, and infrastructure-level SDK development.

You will work directly with the founder to translate novel AI research into hardened, deployable systems.

Responsibilities

AI & Platform Engineering

• Architect, maintain, and evolve the Ephapsys SDK (Python-based)
• Implement and test neural interaction operators within modern ML frameworks
• Design secure AI agent deployment pipelines
• Build modular, production-grade ML components
• Improve inference performance, observability, and reproducibility
• Develop model evaluation, benchmarking, and stress-testing workflows

Cybersecurity & Governance

• Conduct threat modeling for AI systems and neural modulation mechanisms
• Design runtime integrity verification mechanisms
• Secure model artifacts, modulation parameters, and inference endpoints
• Implement cryptographic binding of model state and identity
• Evaluate attack surfaces in edge and cloud deployments
• Contribute to secure-by-design SDK architecture

Infrastructure & MLOps

• Build secure CI/CD pipelines for AI systems
• Design logging, monitoring, and tamper-detection mechanisms
• Ensure secure cloud deployments (GCP, Azure, or AWS)
• Harden packaging, dependency management, and artifact distribution
• Contribute to SOC2-aligned engineering practices

Qualifications

Required

• PhD or equivalent experience in Computer Science, AI, ML, or Cybersecurity
• Strong Python engineering skills
• Experience deploying production ML systems
• Hands-on experience with LLMs, fine-tuning, RAG, or agent frameworks
• Familiarity with PyTorch or TensorFlow
• Experience with cloud platforms (Azure, GCP, or AWS)
• Strong understanding of AI security risks (model extraction, prompt injection, data poisoning, etc.)
• Ability to reason independently about research feasibility and system stability

Preferred

• Experience with knowledge graphs or structured reasoning systems
• Experience with model interpretability tools (e.g., SHAP, LIME)
• Familiarity with cryptographic primitives and identity systems
• Experience securing edge AI deployments
• Experience contributing to SDKs or developer-facing platforms

What Success Looks Like

Within the first 3-6 months, you will strengthen and modularize the Ephapsys SDK, prototype and evaluate neural interaction operators, design secure deployment workflows for AI agents, document and mitigate AI-specific attack surfaces, and elevate the platform from research code to production-ready infrastructure.

Why Join Ephapsys

• Work on foundational AI infrastructure
• Operate at the frontier of neural systems and cybersecurity
• High technical ownership
• Early-stage equity participation
• Direct collaboration with the founder and core architecture design