Staff Security Engineer

Lambda is the #1 GPU Cloud for ML/AI teams training, fine-tuning and inferencing AI models, where engineers can easily, securely and affordably build, test and deploy AI products at scale. Lambda’s product portfolio includes on-prem GPU systems, hosted GPUs across public & private clouds and managed inference services – servicing government, researchers, startups and Enterprises world-wide.

If you'd like to build the world's best deep learning cloud, join us. 

*Note: This position requires presence in our San Francisco office location 4 days per week; Lambda’s designated work from home day is currently Tuesday.

Engineering at Lambda is responsible for building and scaling our cloud offering. Our scope includes the Lambda website, cloud APIs and systems as well as internal tooling for system deployment, management and maintenance.

Lambda Security protects some of the world's most valuable digital assets: invaluable training data, model weights representing immense computational investments, and the sensitive inputs required to leverage best of breed AI models. We're responsible for securing every byte that powers breakthrough artificial intelligence.

As a Staff Security Engineer, you'll be the technical backbone of our security program, building and implementing security solutions that directly protect customer data and enable Lambda to be the safest place to build with AI.

Reporting to the Senior Manager of Security and collaborating closely with Product Engineering, Platform Engineering, and embedded Technical Program Managers, you'll drive hands-on security improvements across our AI-focused infrastructure. Your work will span detection and response systems, vulnerability management, security architecture, and tooling that scales with our rapid growth while maintaining the highest security standards.

You will work on implementing enterprise-grade detection capabilities, automating incident response workflows, hardening our multi-cloud and bare metal infrastructure, and establishing security tooling that positions Lambda as the industry's most trusted AI computing platform. You'll have unique access to LLMs hosted on our own infrastructure to pioneer AI-powered security solutions that wouldn't be possible anywhere else.

If you thrive on solving complex security challenges in cutting-edge AI infrastructure and want to build security programs that scale from hundreds to thousands of systems, we'd love to talk.

We value diverse backgrounds, experiences, and skills, and we are excited to hear from candidates who can bring unique perspectives to our team. If you do not exactly meet this description but believe you may be a good fit, please still apply and help us understand your readiness for a Security Technical Program Manager role. You cannot waste our time.

What You’ll Do

• Drive Security Improvements: Design and implement comprehensive security solutions including detection capabilities, automation, and endpoint detection and response (EDR) across Lambda's infrastructure.

• Lead Incident Response: Drive critical security incident resolution, developing response automation and conducting post-incident reviews that strengthen our security posture.

• Develop Security Architecture: Create security architecture patterns and implementation guides that engineering teams can adopt to build secure-by-default systems.

• Build Detection & Response: Implement and tune SIEM/SOAR solutions, creating detection rules that identify threats while minimizing false positives.

• Pioneer AI-Powered Security: Leverage Lambda's hosted LLMs to build next-generation security capabilities including automated threat analysis, intelligent alert correlation, and AI-assisted incident response that push far beyond traditional approaches.

• Collaborate Across Engineering: Partner with Product and Platform Engineering teams to integrate security requirements into their development cycles at optimal moments.

• Mentor Security Excellence: Coach engineers across the organization on secure coding practices and security tool usage, multiplying your impact.

• Drive Vulnerability Management: Establish and operate vulnerability scanning, prioritization, and remediation programs that protect critical assets.

• Develop Security Tooling: Build security tools and automations that enable teams to maintain security standards without sacrificing development velocity.

• Advocate for Security: Communicate security value to stakeholders, translating technical risks into business impact for informed decision-making.

You

• Have 5+ years of hands-on security engineering experience and 10+ years of total engineering experience, with demonstrated impact protecting enterprise infrastructure.

• Thrive in high-speed, high-ambiguity startup environments where you build security programs while responding to immediate threats.

• Deep technical expertise with security tooling including SIEM/SOAR platforms, EDR solutions, vulnerability scanners, and cloud security monitoring.

• Excel at solving complex problems in Python, Go, or similar languages, building automations that scale security impact.

• Proven ability to work effectively with cross-functional technical teams both with and without authority (we're all on the same team!).

• Strong Linux systems experience in both bare metal and cloud environments, understanding infrastructure from kernel to application layer.

• Demonstrated experience driving security improvements that were enthusiastically adopted by engineering teams.

• Excellence at translating security concerns into business risk, enabling stakeholders to make informed decisions.

If you do not meet all of these requirements but believe you may be a good fit, please still apply and provide a cover letter that helps us understand your readiness for a staff security engineering role.

Nice to Have

• You've led or developed major components of enterprise security programs (detection & response, vulnerability management, security architecture, security tooling).

• Experience driving or providing significant evidence for compliance audits, such as SOC 2, ISO 27001, PCI-DSS, HIPAA/HITECH, or FedRAMP.

• Deep experience working with virtualization solutions such as KVM, Hyper-V, or Xen in production environments.

• Significant experience operating large-scale production services (SRE experience across thousands of hosts).

• You've built or deployed critical security infrastructure like SIEM solutions, canaries/honeypots, IDS/IPS, or custom detection platforms.

• Security certifications like CISSP, OSCP, or similar that demonstrate continued learning.

• Experience with AI/ML infrastructure security or protecting high-value computational workloads.

• Excitement about leveraging our direct access to state-of-the-art LLMs to revolutionize security operations—imagine AI-powered threat hunting, automated security report generation, and intelligent vulnerability prioritization at a scale only possible when you host the AI infrastructure yourself.

Salary Range Information

Based on market data and other factors, the annual salary range for this position is $350,000-$500,000. However, a salary higher or lower than this range may be appropriate for a candidate whose qualifications differ meaningfully from those listed in the job description.

About Lambda

• Founded in 2012, ~350 employees (2024) and growing fast

• We offer generous cash & equity compensation

• Our investors include Andra Capital, SGW, Andrej Karpathy, ARK Invest, Fincadia Advisors, G Squared, In-Q-Tel (IQT), KHK & Partners, NVIDIA, Pegatron, Supermicro, Wistron, Wiwynn, US Innovative Technology, Gradient Ventures, Mercato Partners, SVB, 1517, Crescent Cove.

• We are experiencing extremely high demand for our systems, with quarter over quarter, year over year profitability

• Our research papers have been accepted into top machine learning and graphics conferences, including NeurIPS, ICCV, SIGGRAPH, and TOG

• Health, dental, and vision coverage for you and your dependents

• Wellness and Commuter stipends for select roles

• 401k Plan with 2% company match (USA employees)

• Flexible Paid Time Off Plan that we all actually use

A Final Note:

You do not need to match all of the listed expectations to apply for this position. We are committed to building a team with a variety of backgrounds, experiences, and skills.

Equal Opportunity Employer

Lambda is an Equal Opportunity employer. Applicants are considered without regard to race, color, religion, creed, national origin, age, sex, gender, marital status, sexual orientation and identity, genetic information, veteran status, citizenship, or any other factors prohibited by local, state, or federal law.