Staff Security Engineer, AI

Outsiders Fund; Seattle (WA); On-site; USD 175,000 - 265,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Performance-based bonus

Equity awards

Medical, dental & vision coverage (100

401k plan

Unlimited PTO

Seattle office with gym, sauna, bike

Free lunch three days a week

Job summary

Gradial seeks a Staff Security Engineer, AI to own product and platform security end-to-end as we scale. This hands-on role sets technical direction for security and builds controls that matter most while collaborating with engineering, IT, and compliance leaders.

You’ll drive security investments, shape the agentic platform, and ensure SOC 2 readiness as Gradial expands its customer base and capabilities in AI-driven marketing automation.

Qualifications

• 8+ years in security engineering with Principal or Staff ownership across complex production systems.
• Deep product security experience across threat modeling, secure architecture, authentication and authorization and multi-tenant systems.
• Strong hands-on experience with cloud security, Kubernetes, IAM and infrastructure as code.

Responsibilities

• Define and drive Gradial’s product and platform security strategy, prioritizing investments against risks as we scale.
• Lead threat modeling for the agentic platform and design protections across agent behavior, permissions, isolation, data and boundaries.
• Harden application and cloud infrastructure across production access, secrets management and CI/CD supply chain.
• Partner with engineering to build secure-by-default patterns into how agents, services and infrastructure are designed and shipped.
• Own security detection and incident response for the platform, including logging standards and response processes.
• Represent technical security in enterprise customer reviews and architecture discussions.

Skills

Threat modeling

Secure architecture

Authentication & authorization

LLM security

Incident response

Production code

Tools

Kubernetes

IAM

Infrastructure as Code

Cloud security

Job description

Gradial is building the AI-native system of work for enterprise marketing. Our agents turn ideas into live campaigns by executing across the tools, teams, and workflows enterprises already use—from content authoring and campaign assembly to quality assurance and brand compliance. We give marketers and creatives more time to shape brands, understand customers, and create work that moves people.

We’re tackling some of the hardest problems in applied AI: building agent harnesses, sandboxed execution environments, and orchestration that enable agents to plan, act, and verify their work reliably at enterprise scale. We’re growing rapidly, winning Fortune 500 and enterprise customers including AWS, T‑Mobile, and Prudential. Our $65 million Series C led by Insight Partners is accelerating that momentum.

Join us to help define how people and AI agents work together. We move with urgency, reason from first principles, and take ownership from idea to customer impact. You’ll shape the product, own consequential problems, and build systems that some of the world’s leading brands depend on every day.

The Role

As Gradial’s first dedicated security engineer, you’ll join as a Staff Security Engineer, AI and own product and platform security end to end, shaping how we design, build and operate secure agentic systems as we scale.

This is a deeply hands‑on Staff IC role where you’ll set the technical direction for security, build the systems and controls that matter most and partner closely with engineering as our platform and customer base grow. You’ll work alongside our IT and compliance lead, who owns GRC and corporate IT, and have significant autonomy to determine where security investment will have the greatest impact.

What You’ll Own

• Define and drive Gradial’s product and platform security strategy, prioritizing investments against the risks that matter most as we scale.
• Lead threat modeling for our agentic platform and design protections across agent behavior, permissions, isolation, customer data and platform boundaries.
• Harden our application and cloud infrastructure across production access, IAM, secrets management and the CI/CD supply chain.
• Partner with engineering to build secure‑by‑default patterns into how agents, services and infrastructure are designed and shipped.
• Own security detection and incident response for the platform, including logging standards, detection coverage and response processes.
• Represent technical security in enterprise customer reviews and architecture discussions, translating our approach clearly to customer security teams.
• Own the technical controls that support SOC 2 in partnership with our IT and compliance lead, ensuring controls are effective in practice as our systems evolve.
• Help shape the future of security at Gradial, including identifying where we need additional capabilities and helping hire future security team members.

What We Need

• 8+ years of experience in security engineering, including Principal or Staff‑level ownership across complex production systems.
• Deep product security experience across threat modeling, secure architecture, authentication and authorization and multi‑tenant systems.
• Strong hands‑on experience with cloud security, Kubernetes, IAM and infrastructure as code.
• A strong technical point of view on securing LLM and agent‑based systems, with the ability to reason about emerging risks from first principles.
• Experience leading security incident response for production services and improving systems based on what you learn.
• A track record of writing and shipping production code, security tooling or infrastructure, not just reviewing the work of others.
• Strong judgment and comfort making pragmatic security trade‑offs in fast‑moving environments without an established playbook.
• Clear communication with engineers, company leadership and enterprise customer security teams.

Nice to Have

• Experience as an early security hire at a high‑growth B2B SaaS, AI or infrastructure company.
• Experience building security detections, telemetry and logging pipelines in cloud environments.
• Experience implementing technical controls for SOC 2 or ISO 27001, or contributing to AI security research, standards or open‑source security tooling.

The salary range for this position is $175,000 – $265,000 annually. Final compensation will be determined based on factors such as experience, skills, and qualifications.

What we offer

• Performance-based annual bonus
• Meaningful equity awards
• Medical, dental & vision (fully covered for employees with 75% for dependents)
• Fertility & family‑planning support
• 401k plan
• Unlimited PTO
• A beautiful Seattle office with a gym, sauna, and bike parking
• Free lunch three days a week in our HQ
• A front‑row seat to building category‑defining AI infrastructure

You’ll thrive here if you

• Learn quickly, actively seek out new challenges, and regularly reconsider “how it’s always been done.”
• Want to have real impact with zero bureaucracy.
• Have an innate drive for being 1% better than the day before, building towards greatness.
• Embrace AI as a core tool for problem‑solving, innovation, and scale.
• Show customer‑obsession (internal or external), high ownership/accountability, and bias for action.
• Communicate clearly, directly, with curiosity, and assuming good intentions.
• Thrive in fast‑paced, hyper‑growth environments where building better > maintaining status quo.

AI Literacy & Interviewing Tools

As an AI‑first company, we prioritize AI literacy as a core competency in our hiring decisions. We’re excited by candidates who thoughtfully apply AI tools in their work, but during interviews we’re focused onyou. This is your opportunity to show how you think, communicate, and solve problems. Over‑reliance on AI‑generated responses during the interview process (especially when it obscures your own voice) will result in disqualification. We want to understand your unique perspective and how you approach challenges, both with and without AI.

Gradial is dedicated to creating an environment where diverse perspectives are valued and all team members can grow. We offer competitive compensation, equity, flexible work hours, comprehensive benefits, and a collaborative culture focused on learning and impact.