Staff Security Engineer

robotsandpencils; United States; Remote; USD 77,000 - 106,000; Full time

Job summary

Robots and Pencils is seeking a Staff Security Engineer to set the security direction of cloud applications and AI-enabled systems. This senior technical leadership role covers security architecture, threat analysis, cloud controls, automation, detection, incident response, and production AI/LLM protection.

You will lead risk reviews, define protections for IAM, encryption, data protection, and incident response, while mentoring engineers and advancing security practices across engineering teams.

Qualifications

• Extensive professional experience in security engineering or a closely related technical discipline.
• Design and secure cloud infrastructure, application code, APIs, and production services.
• Strong knowledge of threat modeling, security reviews, IAM, secrets management, encryption, and security automation.
• Translate complex security risks and tradeoffs for engineering, product, leadership and other stakeholders.
• Lead difficult technical problems independently while mentoring engineers and raising standards.
• Familiarity with AI/LLM security implications and integrations such as tool calling or multi-step agent workflows.

Responsibilities

• Define security architecture and engineering standards for web apps, APIs, cloud-native services, and production systems.
• Lead threat modeling, security design reviews, and risk prioritization across applications and AI systems.
• Establish cloud security controls covering IAM, network security, secrets, encryption, and data protection.
• Integrate security automation, policy as code, and shift-left detection into CI/CD workflows.
• Lead detection engineering, security logging, and incident-response practices.
• Define protections for AI applications against prompt injection, data leakage, model abuse, and agent threats.

Skills

Security engineering

Cloud security

Threat modeling

Security reviews

Automation

Incident response

AI/LLM security

Job description

Role overview

Staff Security Engineer responsible for setting the security direction of cloud applications and AI-enabled systems. This is a senior technical leadership role covering security architecture, threat analysis, cloud controls, automation, detection, incident response, and the protection of production AI and large-language-model workloads.

Responsibilities

• Define security architecture and engineering standards for web applications, APIs, cloud-native services, and complex production systems.


• Lead threat modeling, security design reviews, and risk prioritization across application and AI systems.


• Establish cloud security controls covering identity and access management, network security, secrets, encryption, and data protection.


• Integrate security automation, policy as code, and shift-left detection into continuous integration and delivery workflows.


• Lead detection engineering, security logging, and incident-response practices.


• Define protections for AI applications, including defenses against prompt injection, data leakage, model abuse, and agent-related threats.

Requirements

• Extensive professional experience in security engineering or a closely related technical discipline.


• Demonstrated ability to design and secure cloud infrastructure, application code, APIs, and production services.


• Strong knowledge of threat modeling, security reviews, identity, secrets management, encryption, and security automation.


• Experience translating complex security risks and tradeoffs for engineering, product, leadership, and other stakeholders.


• Ability to lead difficult technical problems independently while mentoring engineers and raising engineering standards.


• Familiarity with the security implications of AI/LLM applications and integrations such as tool calling or multi-step agent workflows.

Nice to have

• Experience building detection and response capabilities for cloud production environments.


• Experience integrating AI services into security workflows for detection, investigation, or triage.


• Comfort using modern AI-assisted engineering tools to improve delivery quality and speed.

Benefits and work setup

This is a remote role for candidates based in the United States. The listed compensation range is approximately $56–$77 USD per hour.

• Eligible employees may receive paid time off, medical, dental, and vision insurance, plus a 401(k).