Windows Driver Security Engineer APPLIED AI VR WINDOWS New York, NY / On Site →

Zealot Labs, Inc.; New York (NY); On-site; USD 100,000 - 195,000; Full time

Job summary

Zealot Labs, Inc. is an early-stage cybersecurity startup in New York focusing on Windows kernel security research. You will join a small, ownership-driven team to uncover driver and kernel vulnerabilities, craft exploit primitives, and build automated tooling for driver analysis and fuzzing.

The role emphasizes deep kernel expertise, vulnerability research, and practical penetration testing. This is a hands-on, highly technical position with strong compensation and equity potential.

Qualifications

• Discover and exploit vulnerabilities in Windows kernel-mode and user-mode drivers.
• Research attack surfaces across WDDM display drivers, network miniport drivers, filesystem filter drivers, and third-party kernel extensions.
• Develop exploit primitives for privilege escalation, sandbox escape, and kernel code execution.
• Build automated tooling for Windows driver analysis, fuzzing, and vulnerability triage.
• Deep experience with Windows kernel internals: I/O manager, object manager, memory manager.
• Proven track record of driver vulnerability research (CVEs, ZDI submissions, or security research).
• Strong x86/x64 reverse engineering and exploit development skills.
• Proficiency with WinDbg, IDA/Ghidra, and driver analysis frameworks.

Responsibilities

• Discover and exploit vulnerabilities in Windows kernel-mode and user-mode drivers.
• Research attack surfaces across Windows drivers and kernel extensions.
• Develop exploit primitives for privilege escalation and sandbox escape.
• Build automated tooling for Windows driver analysis, fuzzing, and vulnerability triage.
• Deep experience with Windows kernel internals: I/O manager, object manager, memory manager.
• Proven track record of driver vulnerability research (CVEs, ZDI submissions, or security research).
• Strong x86/x64 reverse engineering and exploit development skills.
• Proficiency with WinDbg, IDA/Ghidra, and driver analysis frameworks.

Skills

Windows kernel

Reverse engineering

Exploit development

WinDbg

IDA/Ghidra

Tools

Driver analysis frameworks

Fuzzing tooling

Job description

Zealot is deploying AI systems at the center of western cyber operations , backed by tier-1 US VCs and industry leaders. Our team includes alumni of Anthropic, xAI, and Anduril. Soon live with close U.S. allies abroad.

APPLIED AI VR WINDOWS

Compensation 100K-195K + skin in the game equity

Location New York, NY On Site

Stage Early-stage startup backed by tier 1 investors. Small, growing team with exceptionally high ownership.

• + Discover and exploit vulnerabilities in Windows kernel-mode and user-mode drivers.
• + Research attack surfaces across WDDM display drivers, network miniport drivers, filesystem filter drivers, and third-party kernel extensions.
• + Develop exploit primitives for privilege escalation, sandbox escape, and kernel code execution.
• + Build automated tooling for Windows driver analysis, fuzzing, and vulnerability triage.
• + Deep experience with Windows kernel internals: I/O manager, object manager, memory manager.
• + Proven track record of driver vulnerability research (CVEs, ZDI submissions, or security research).
• + Strong x86/x64 reverse engineering and exploit development skills.
• + Proficiency with WinDbg, IDA/Ghidra, and driver analysis frameworks.

Nice to Have

• + Experience with Hyper-V and virtualization-based security (VBS) attack surfaces.
• + Familiarity with Windows driver fuzzing (kAFL, what the fuzz, custom harnesses).
• + Experience with BYOVD (Bring Your Own Vulnerable Driver) attack techniques.
• + Knowledge of Windows Defender / EDR kernel-mode components.
• + Experience building with LLMs and AI agents.
• + Published research or conference talks on Windows kernel security.
• + Deeply technical and motivated to find the bugs that matter at the kernel level.
• + Clearly interested in stepping away from purely manual research and moving toward the development of AI systems.
• + Building something massive matters more to you than comfort, titles, or predictability.
• + You want to be early at a company that will change an industry, and you're ready to do what that actually takes.

Ready?