Security Engineer

Contract type
Ongoing
Work mode
Hybrid · Cambridge, United Kingdom · London, United Kingdom
Experience
Mid-level · 3+ years

Job description

Security Engineer at CuspAI responsible for building automated security pipelines and AI-specific guardrails to protect frontier models, research data, and infrastructure. The role is an early security hire focused on architecting a shift-left security culture across the ML lifecycle and cloud environments.

At a glance

Employment
Full-time · Employee (employment agreement)
Work mode
Hybrid · Cambridge, United Kingdom · London, United Kingdom

What you'll do

  • Secure the end-to-end ML lifecycle, implementing defenses against data poisoning and protecting proprietary model weights from theft
  • Design and deploy prompt injection defenses and runtime firewalls to prevent unauthorized manipulation of LLM interfaces
  • Implement AI Security Posture Management (AI-SPM) to monitor and catalog self-hosted models, internal training datasets, and proprietary endpoints
  • Weave automated security guardrails into CI/CD workflows, including secret scanning, API exposure checks, and software composition analysis (SCA)
  • Codify security policies using Infrastructure as Code (IaC), ensuring cloud resources are automatically compliant with global standards (e.g. GDPR, SOC2)
  • Manage secrets and vulnerability patching for containerized environments (e.g. Docker, Kubernetes)
  • Design strict, least-privilege Identity and Access Management (IAM) controls to isolate sensitive training data and research workloads
  • Lead incident response efforts by monitoring production logs for anomalies and collaborating with AI Researchers to deploy rapid fixes
  • Empower the engineering team to own security by providing tools for local IDE security scanning and pre-commit hooks
  • Act as a security educator, cultivating a culture of shared responsibility across the AI, chemistry, and engineering teams
  • Partner with researchers, chemists, and engineers to translate security requirements into practical workflows

What we're looking for

  • Motivated by the mission of using AI for planetary-scale impact and understand the high stakes of securing deep tech intellectual property
  • 3+ years of experience in a DevSecOps, Cloud Security, or Site Reliability Engineering role, preferably within a fast-paced startup or AI-centric company
  • Proven experience building and securing CI/CD pipelines (e.g. GitHub Actions, GitLab CI, or Jenkins)
  • Strong proficiency in Infrastructure as Code (e.g. Terraform, Pulumi) and securing cloud environments (AWS, GCP, or Azure)
  • Deep understanding of container security and orchestration (Docker, Kubernetes)
  • Practical knowledge of security frameworks and how to implement them without slowing down development cycles

Nice to have

  • Direct experience with AI-specific security tools or defending against LLM-specific vulnerabilities (OWASP Top 10 for LLMs)
  • Experience with AI Security Posture Management (AI-SPM) tools
  • Relevant certifications such as AWS Certified Security, CSEP, or OSCP
  • A background or personal interest in materials science, chemistry, or the intersection of AI and physical sciences

Benefits

  • A competitive salary
  • Equity in CuspAI
  • 28 days holiday (DE, NL, UK) or 21 days holiday (JP, SG, US), in addition to local public holidays
  • 'Gold Standard' parental leave: 26 weeks (primary caregiver) and 12 weeks (secondary caregiver) at full pay
  • Professional development budget
  • Solve meaningful problems
  • True interdisciplinary teamwork

Apply

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About CuspAI

The frontier AI company on a mission to solve the breakthrough materials needed to power human progress

CuspAI is a frontier AI company working at the intersection of AI and materials science, building a 'search engine' for next-generation materials. Its founding team is comprised of world-class researchers in AI, chemistry and engineering.

Mission

To solve the breakthrough materials needed to power human progress by harnessing AI to unlock trillion-dollar materials breakthroughs in months, not millennia

Key facts

  • AI and materials science
  • Founding team is the most cited in the world, comprised of world-class researchers in AI, chemistry and engineering
  • Working on challenges including energy, clean water, the future of compute, and carbon capture
  • Building a 'search engine' for next-generation materials

What they value

  • Diverse and inclusive workplace
  • Collaboration
  • Shared responsibility