AI Security & Control Engineer

The Opportunity We are building Watcher, a coding agent security product. We are looking for a security & control expert to help us design better threat models and control protocols against AI adversaries, and improve the effectiveness and security of Watcher. A security & control expert embedded in the product team with three functions: Research: Supporting Apollo's monitoring research with threat modeling, attack design, red‑teaming, and trajectory analysis (~50%) Expert view: Bring a security expert’s view of what security buyers need to make Watcher a better product (~25%) Product security: Improve the security posture of Watcher and Apollo's product infrastructure (~25%) This is truly a “start-up role” in the sense that you have many responsibilities and have significant say in shaping the direction of the role. This is an individual contributor role but could lead to management responsibilities eventually, if desired. Security support for research (50%) Threat modeling for coding agents Develop threat models for coding agents under the assumption that they could be misaligned or compromised. This includes near‑term threats like AI agents leaking private internal data and long‑term threats like agents sabotaging safety research. Treat coding agents through the lens of insider risk: they have credentials, access to code, network access, and the ability to execute arbitrary actions, just like a malicious insider would. Map out kill chains and attack progressions similar to frameworks like MITRE ATT&CK, adapted for agentic AI. Build and maintain our “coding agent security levels” which define what level of robustness Watcher provides against different categories of failure modes. These levels should be concrete, testable, and usable both internally (to guide product priorities) and externally (to communicate our security posture to customers). Failure mode library and literature Maintain our library of coding agent failure modes and keep it comprehensive, accurate, and current. Stay up to date with the academic and industry literature on coding agent security, AI security, and adjacent fields (prompt injection, deception, accidental security implications, supply chain attacks on AI systems, etc.). Attack design for monitor development Design realistic attack trajectories and example exploits for monitor development and backtesting; work with the research team to ensure monitors are trained and evaluated against credible adversarial behavior. Trajectory adjudication Serve as a security adjudicator for flagged trajectories. When monitors flag ambiguous agent behavior, determine whether it represents a genuine attack, a benign‑but‑unusual workflow, or needs deeper investigation, and feed those judgments back into monitor improvement. Red‑teaming Watcher Red‑team and improve Watcher's monitors and policies, document findings, and feed them into product improvement. Work with the technical research staff to build adversarial test suites into the backtesting pipeline. Security expertise for product (25%) Failure mode prioritization and CISO perspective Understand which failure modes are the biggest problems and prioritise systematically what is most useful to solve for security buyers. Customer engagement and landscape awareness Join customer/prospect calls to understand security needs firsthand and map them onto the threat models and library of failure modes. Maintain awareness of how enterprises currently secure coding agents (or don't), what tools they use (SIEM, DLP, CSPM), and how Watcher fits into their existing stack. Customer‑facing security artifacts Own security questionnaire responses, product security whitepapers, and support for customer pen‑tests. Own technical content of customer‑facing communications during incidents. Improving security posture for product (25%) Attack surface, infrastructure, and isolation Own AppSec standards for the product engineering team (code review security checklists, dependency scanning, secrets management in CI/CD, container hardening). Own vendor security decisions for product: which SaaS tools can we integrate and what restrictions should we have. Reduce attack surface for all product‑related deployments, infra and cloud deployment work, and ensure clean isolation between the Apollo Product team and other teams at Apollo to prevent lateral movement either way. Data handling and multi‑tenancy Define security requirements for tenant isolation, encryption at rest and in transit, access controls, and data retention policies for customer coding agent transcripts with the product engineering lead. Product threat model and incident response Co‑own the product‑specific threat model with the product team lead (distinct from the org‑wide threat model owned by existing security engineers) and keep it up to date. Must‑haves 5+ years in security roles in a hands‑on technical capacity (not purely GRC/compliance). You need to be able to think structurally about threat modeling and failure modes, read code, understand infrastructure, and evaluate technical controls. Engineering mindset: treat security as an engineering problem. Capable of building custom solutions, prioritise automation, systems‑level thinking, and use AI to accelerate development. Direct experience with application security, cloud security, or product security. Strong understanding of enterprise security buyer concerns. Comfortable working in a small, fast‑moving team, context‑switching between hands‑on security work and strategic product thinking. Strong written communication for clear and precise artifacts. Nice‑to‑haves Experience with AI/ML systems security, LLM security, or AI control research. Detection engineering, SOC, or incident analysis experience. Familiarity with insider threat programs or insider risk frameworks. Experience in a security vendor or security product company. Red‑team or offensive security background. Formal AI safety research background. Explicitly not required Management experience. Specific certifications (CISSP, etc.). Benefits Market competitive salary, equity, and competitive benefits. Salary: 135k - 200k GBP (~180k - 270k USD). Flexible work hours and schedule. Unlimited vacation. Unlimited sick leave. Up to 6 months of paid parental leave. Comprehensive health, dental, vision insurance. Retirement savings with competitive employer matching (e.g., 401(k) for US employees). Lunch, dinner, and snacks provided on workdays. Paid work trips, including staff retreats, business trips, relevant conferences. Yearly $1,000 USD professional development budget. Relocation support and visa fees (if applicable). Time Allocation Full‑time. Location: in‑person role working out of London or San Francisco office with flexible working hours and some WFH arrangements. Visa sponsorship: sponsor visas in UK and US. Sponsorship not guaranteed for every role. Equality Statement Apollo Research is an Equal Opportunity Employer. We value diversity and are committed to providing equal opportunities to all, regardless of age, disability, gender reassignment, marriage and civil partnership, pregnancy and maternity, race, religion or belief, sex, or sexual orientation. About the Team The Product / Control team is a new team. Early on you will work closely with Marius Hobbhahn (CEO & monitoring team lead), Victor Gillioz (Research Scientist), Monika Jotautaitė (Research Scientist), and product engineers Jeremy Neiman, Zak Walters, Zen van Riel, and Srdjan Miletic. You will also interact with other SWEs and researchers. #J-18808-Ljbffr Apolloresearch