Staff / Principal Security Engineer, AI Safety and Security
$192k - $306k • Cambridge, MA USA; London, UK; San Francisco, CA USA • Full-time
Posted 15d ago
Remote Work Policy
On-site
Employment Type
Full-time
Categories
AI Engineer
About the job
Lila is developing AI systems for scientific discovery, connecting advanced models with scientific tools and automated laboratories. As these systems become more capable, we need to understand how they could be misused or compromised, which protections matter most, and how to establish that those protections work together. We're hiring an experienced security practitioner to lead this work at the boundary between AI safety and security. You will investigate real systems, develop threat models, test important assumptions, and recommend the protections needed for particular capabilities and deployments. Your work will address both dangerous misuse and the protection of sensitive models, data, and research. This is an opportunity to help shape a developing area of AI safety through security practice, combining technical investigation with careful analysis and clear writing, working closely with our established Security team, researchers, and engineers to turn findings into implemented improvements. You will bring security depth and develop your understanding of model capabilities, evaluations, and safeguards through that work.
Responsibilities
- Threat-model consequential systems and capabilities, investigating how dangerous misuse or compromise could occur across models, deployed services, and scientific workflows.
- Identify relevant actors, access routes, and failure paths, and the protections that could interrupt them.
- Test the assumptions behind defenses by examining architectures, code, configurations, and operational evidence.
- Run focused adversarial tests, build prototypes, and investigate weaknesses, including situations where several protections depend on the same underlying system.
- Shape the protections needed for safe deployment by turning dangerous-capability assessments into concrete security requirements.
- Assess how compromise of models, sensitive assets, or supporting systems changes the safety assessment, drawing on personnel, physical, and other security specialists.
- Make evidence-based recommendations by defining what evidence would demonstrate that important controls and safeguards work together.
- Combine findings from model evaluations and security testing, explain remaining uncertainty, and recommend improvements or conditions for use.
- Carry findings through to practical improvements by working with Security, Safety, and engineering owners to prioritize changes, specify acceptance criteria, and verify results.
- Anticipate what more capable systems will require by identifying where changes in capability, access, or deployment call for stronger protections.
- Help teams plan security work with long lead times and update assessments as systems change or new evidence emerges.
- Develop methods that others can use by turning investigations into clear threat models, assessment methods, and technical guidance.
- Help Safety and Security colleagues apply the approach to new problems and build a shared understanding of the evidence behind decisions.
Requirements
- Substantial hands-on security experience and deep expertise in at least one relevant discipline (e.g., security architecture, application or infrastructure security, offensive security, incident response).
- Ability to reason across disciplines and identify when specialist judgment is needed.
- A record of resolving consequential security problems, including investigating ambiguous risks, challenging designs, and following improvements through to validation.
- Strong technical judgment, with the ability to examine unfamiliar systems, scrutinize code and configurations, and use technical investigation or testing to distinguish plausible claims from demonstrated protection.
- Curiosity about AI safety and scientific systems, with the ability to learn unfamiliar domains quickly and reason carefully when evidence is incomplete.
- Clear writing and effective collaboration skills, with the ability to explain technical arguments precisely and work through disagreements with specialists.
- Ability to turn complex investigations into actionable recommendations.
Benefits
- Competitive base compensation with bonus potential
- Generous early-stage equity
- Comprehensive benefits program (medical, dental, vision)
- Employer-paid life and disability insurance
- Flexible time off with generous company wide holidays
- Paid parental leave
- Educational assistance program
- Commuter benefits (including bike share memberships for office-based employees)
- Company subsidized lunch program
- International benefits tailored to region