Senior Security Engineer, Digital Assets

Senior Engineer, Crypto Security

At Charles Schwab, you're empowered to make an impact on your career. Here, innovative thought meets creative problem solving, helping us "challenge the status quo" and transform the finance industry together. We believe in the importance of in-office collaboration and fully intend for the selected candidate for this role to work on site in the specified location(s).

We are hiring a Senior Engineer, Crypto Security to help design, build, and secure Schwab's institutional‑grade digital asset custody platforms.

This is a hands‑on engineering role focused on crypto‑native security capabilities and digital asset development, including secure wallet technologies, key management, cryptographic protocols, smart contract security, tokenization, custody policy enforcement, and advanced blockchain security solutions.

The role partners closely with the Digital Assets engineering team to ensure custody platforms and other digital asset services are secure by design, resilient to failure, and aligned with Schwab's risk, governance, and regulatory standards.

Secure Wallet & Key Management Engineering

• Contribute to the design and implementation of secure wallet solutions, including:
• Multi‑Party Computation (MPC)
• Hardware Security Modules (HSMs)
• Cold, warm, and hot wallet architectures
• Custodial vs. non‑custodial control models
• Implement distributed key generation and signing workflows that eliminate single points of failure.
• Ensure secure handling of key lifecycle events—generation, storage, usage, rotation, and recovery.
• Work closely with Custody Leads to validate cryptographic assumptions and architectural choices.

Cryptographic Protocols & Advanced Blockchain Security

• Design and implement security‑critical components leveraging:
• Modern cryptographic protocols
• DeFi application security principles
• Cross‑chain and blockchain interoperability patterns
• Participate in evaluating and integrating advanced technologies such as:
• Zero‑Knowledge Proofs (ZKPs)
• Decentralized Identity (DID) frameworks
• Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) architectures (as applicable)
• Ensure cryptographic designs are auditable, explainable, and production‑ready.
• Experience with Web3 Security tooling with Slither, Mythril, Foundry Fuzzing
• Experience with common cryptography implementation languages such as C, C++, Rust, Go.

Custody Policy Engine & Transaction Controls

• Build and configure programmable custody policy engines, including:
• Multi‑approval and quorum‑based workflows
• Spending thresholds and velocity limits
• Role‑based access controls and segregation of duties
• Translate risk, compliance, and business rules into deterministic, testable technical policies.
• Ensure policies are observable, enforceable, and version‑controlled.

Security Collaboration & Risk Posture

• Work in close partnership with:
• Crypto Custody engineering
• Enterprise Cybersecurity
• Risk and compliance stakeholders
• Identify potential vulnerabilities, failure modes, or misconfigurations early.
• Support security reviews, threat modeling, and architecture assessments.
• Contribute to incident analysis and remediation related to custody or blockchain security events.
• Experience with collaborating with security auditors, ie: Trail of bits, halborn,

Blockchain Platforms, Tokenization & Smart Contracts

• Evaluate and assess blockchain architectures, protocols, and ecosystems for enterprise suitability.
• Design and review smart‑contract frameworks and tokenization approaches, including:
• Tokenized securities
• Stablecoins
• Asset representations using ERC‑20, ERC‑721, ERC‑1155, and related standards
• Assess emerging token lifecycle, settlement, and secure on‑chain governance models for applicability to Schwab's business.
• Experience with implementing, and auditing secure, cross-chain bridges and interoperability protocols (e.g., lock-and-mint, burn-and-mint, atomic swaps) to facilitate asset and data movement between networks.

AI‑Augmented Security Engineering

• Leverage GenAI and agentic AI tools to accelerate:
• Threat modeling
• Cryptographic design reviews
• Documentation and validation
• Apply AI to enhance speed and rigor without compromising correctness or security.

What you have

• 7+ years of software engineering experience with strong focus on security or cryptography.
• Hands‑on experience with secure wallet technologies and key management systems (MPC, HSMs, or equivalent).
• Strong understanding of cryptographic primitives, secure protocol design, and distributed systems.
• Experience building systems where security failures have material impact.
• Ability to collaborate effectively across engineering, security, and risk teams.

Strongly Preferred

• Experience with crypto custody platforms, digital assets, or blockchain infrastructure.
• Hands‑on work with ZKPs, DID frameworks, DeFi protocols, or CBDC‑related systems.
• Experience implementing policy‑driven transaction controls in high‑risk systems.
• Strong security intuition and ability to reason through complex threat models.
• Experience using AI tools to support secure software development.

What Success Looks Like

• Wallet and key management implementations are secure, resilient, and well‑understood.
• Develop backend services to support custody, tokenization
• Custody policy engines are correct by design and enforced consistently.
• Security risks are identified proactively, not reactively.
• The custody and security teams operate with high trust and technical confidence.
• Analyzing and developing secure smart contracts workflows for tokenization, stable coins.
• This role materially strengthens Schwab's digital asset security posture.

In addition to the salary range, this role is also eligible for bonus or incentive opportunities.