Lead Security Engineer

Persons in these roles are expected to work from our offices in Seattle. On‑site requirements vary based on position and team. If you have questions about on‑site work arrangements for this role, please ask your recruiter.

Our base salary range is $176,400 - $264,600, and in addition we have generous bonus plans to provide a competitive compensation package.

Who You Are:

Are you a security-minded individual who not only enjoys identifying security vulnerabilities but also looks forward to helping close out concerns? If so, our infrastructure team is looking for a security leader who can identify and prioritize our biggest security concerns as well as contribute to resolving them. In this role, you’ll work collaboratively across the organization to understand our technical landscape, organize and prioritize security concerns, and directly contribute to projects to secure our systems. If you enjoy taking initiative, learning about new systems, and making a real impact, we want you on our team.

Who We Are:

At Ai2, you'll be joining a team of top AI researchers and talented engineers who are pushing the boundaries of what's possible. We have projects spanning natural language processing, robotics, artificial assistants, and fully open foundational models.

As a Security Engineer, you would be a key part of our core infrastructure team, with a unique opportunity to improve the security of our groundbreaking initiatives. If you join our team, you will lead our company’s security program: establishing how we conduct security evaluations of programs, auditing systems for security concerns, prioritizing security investments, and working across the company to reduce our security risks.

We have a beautiful new office right across from Lake Union in Seattle; catered lunches five times a week; great pay and benefits; smart, friendly, and helpful coworkers; and even a couple of kayaks and paddleboards you can take out on sunny days.

Your Next Challenge:

The essential functions include, but are not limited to, the following:

• Establish and maintain documentation for Ai2's organizational approach to security, including policies, standards, and system security plans (SSPs).
• Maintain and prioritize a backlog of security investments.
• Conduct in-depth security assessments to identify and mitigate vulnerabilities across cloud infrastructure, ML pipelines, and application code.
• Investigate and respond to security incidents, lead root-cause analysis, and drive remediation to closure.
• Build systems and tooling that improve security compliance, observability, and governance (e.g., audit logging, access control, vulnerability management, configuration baselines).
• Partner across research and engineering teams to address security concerns.
• Define and evolve security standards, secure-development practices, and documentation to raise the organization's overall security maturity.
• Evaluate and secure SaaS platforms and tools that make up our environment (vendor risk assessments, access reviews, data handling review, multi-tenant data isolation).
• Serve as the organization's trusted voice on security: act as a hands‑on advisor and sounding board to organizational leaders, helping translate security risk into practical, actionable guidance for teams without deep security expertise.

What You’ll Need:

• Bachelor's Degree and 8–10 years of overall software/infrastructure engineering experience.
• 5+ years focused specifically on security engineering, application security, or security architecture, ideally including time owning a security program.
• Hands‑on experience conducting security and compliance audits, and directly implementing or assessing controls. For example, experience with NIST 800‑171.
• A track record of stepping up to ambiguous, high‑stakes problems rather than waiting for a fully scoped mandate — this role will require building a program largely from the ground up.
• Strong ability to advise non‑security technical leaders (e.g., engineering directors/managers) — translating technical risk into clear, actionable recommendations they can act on without a security background.

Physical Demands and Work Environment:

The physical demands described here are representative of those that must be met by a team member to successfully perform the essential functions of this position. Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the functions.

• Must be able to remain in a stationary position for long periods of time.
• The ability to communicate information and ideas so others will understand. Must be able to exchange accurate information in these situations.
• The ability to observe details at close range.
• Can work under deadlines.

A Little More About Ai2:

Ai2 is a Seattle based non‑profit AI research institute founded in 2014 by the late Paul Allen. Our mission is building breakthrough AI to solve the world’s biggest problems. We develop foundational AI research and innovation to deliver real‑world impact through large‑scale open models, data, robotics, conservation, and beyond.

In addition to Ai2’s core mission, we also aim to contribute to humanity through our treatment of each member of the Ai2 Team. Some highlights are:

• We are a learning organization – because everything Ai2 does is ground‑breaking, we are learning every day. Similarly, through weekly Ai2 Academy lectures, a wide variety of world‑class AI experts as guest speakers, and our commitment to your personal on‑going education, Ai2 is a place where you will have opportunities to continue learning alongside your coworkers.
• We value diversity - We seek to hire, support, and promote people from all genders, ethnicities, and all levels of experience regardless of age. We particularly encourage applications from women, non‑binary individuals, people of color, members of the LGBTQA+ community, and people with disabilities of any kind.
• We value inclusion - We understand the value that people's individual experiences and perspectives can bring to an organization, and we are building a culture in which all voices are heard, respected and considered.
• We emphasize a healthy work/life balance – we believe our team members are happiest and most productive when their work/life balance is optimized. While we value powerful research results which drive our mission forward, we also value dinner with family, weekend time, and vacation time. We offer generous paid vacation and sick leave as well as family leave.
• We are collaborative and transparent – we consider ourselves a team, all moving with a common purpose. We are quick to cheer our successes, and even quicker to share and jointly problem solve our failures.
• We are in Seattle – and our office is on the water! We have mountains, we have lakes, we have four seasons, we bike to work, we have a vibrant theater scene, and we have so much else. We even have kayaks for you to paddle right outside our front door. We welcome interest from applicants from outside of the United States.
• We are friendly– chances are you will like every one of the 200+ (and growing) people who work here. We do.

Ai2 is proud to be an Equal Opportunity employer. We do not discriminate based upon race, religion, color, national origin, sex (including pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical conditions), sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, gender expression, transgender status, sexual stereotypes, age, status as a protected veteran, status as an individual with a disability, or other applicable legally protected characteristics. You may view the related Know Your Rights compliance poster and the Pay Transparency Nondiscrimination Provision by clicking on their corresponding links.

This employer participates in E‑Verify and will provide the federal government with your Form I‑9 information to confirm that you are authorized to work in the U.S. If E‑Verify cannot confirm that you are authorized to work, this employer is required to give you written instructions and an opportunity to contact the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) or Social Security Administration (SSA) so you can begin to resolve the issue before the employer can take any action against you, including terminating your employment. Employers can only use E‑Verify once you have accepted a job offer and completed the Form I‑9.

We are committed to providing reasonable accommodations to employees and applicants with disabilities to the full extent required by the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). If you feel you need a reasonable accommodation pursuant to the ADA, you are encouraged to contact us at View email address on click.appcast.io.

Benefits:

• Team members and their families are covered by medical, dental, vision, and an employee assistance program.
• Team members are able to enroll in our health savings account plan, our healthcare reimbursement arrangement plan, and our health care and dependent care flexible spending account plans.
• Team members are able to enroll in our company’s 401k plan.
• Team members will receive $125 per month to assist with commuting or internet expenses and will also receive $200 per month for fitness and wellbeing expenses.
• Team members will also receive up to ten sick days per year, up to seven personal days per year, up to 20 vacation days per year and twelve paid holidays throughout the calendar year.
• Team members will be able to receive annual bonuses and can participate in the long‑term incentive plan.

Note: This job description in no way states or implies that these are the only duties to be performed by the team members(s) of this position. Team members will be required to follow any other job‑related instructions and to perform any other job‑related duties requested by any person authorized to give instructions or assignments. All duties and responsibilities are essential functions and requirements and are subject to possible modification to reasonably accommodate individuals with disabilities. To perform this job successfully, the team member(s) will possess the skills, aptitudes, and abilities to perform each duty proficiently. Some requirements may exclude individuals who pose a direct threat or significant risk to the health or safety of themselves or others. The requirements listed in this document are the minimum levels of knowledge, skills, or abilities. This document does not create an employment contract, implied or otherwise, other than an at‑will relationship.