Staff Security Software Engineer

RDQ226R605; This role can be based remotely anywhere in the United States. 

The AI Security Engineering team at Databricks builds the security tools, detection systems, and engineering infrastructure that protect Databricks' AI platform and the AI capabilities our customers depend on. We are the builders — designing and shipping security tooling that scales AI threat detection, automates security assessment of AI systems, and gives Databricks and its customers high-confidence assurance that AI capabilities are operating securely. We sit at the intersection of security engineering and AI systems: we understand how AI systems work, how they can be attacked, and how to build engineering solutions that keep them safe at scale.

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As a Staff Security Software Engineer on the AI Security Engineering team, you set the technical direction for AI security engineering at Databricks — defining the architecture, standards, and methodology by which the team builds tooling for AI security assessment, detection, and defense. You are recognized across the Security organization as the authority on AI security engineering: the person engineering leadership consults when AI security tooling decisions have organizational-scale consequences.

You operate across team and organizational boundaries — aligning the AI Security Engineering team's technical roadmap with the detection, GRC, and product security teams that depend on its outputs, and driving AI security engineering standards that the whole security organization can adopt.

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The Impact You Will Have

AI Security Engineering Architecture

• Define the architecture and technical strategy for Databricks' AI security tooling platform — spanning adversarial testing, behavioral monitoring, threat detection, and automated assessment of AI components
• Set engineering standards for the team: design review processes, reliability requirements, observability practices, security properties of the tooling itself, and integration patterns with downstream consumers
• Own the technical decisions on how the team's systems scale to cover Databricks' growing AI surface, how they integrate with product security and detection pipelines, and what tooling capabilities to build vs. buy vs. open-source

AI Threat Detection at Scale

• Lead the design and development of AI platform capabilities that operate at production scale — behavioral analysis of usage, detection of prompt injection attempts, anomaly detection on agentic workflow behavior
• Define the methodology for AI security assessment: how Databricks systematically evaluates new AI capabilities against a comprehensive threat model before deployment and monitors them continuously after
• Drive technical strategy for AI red-teaming tooling: automated adversarial testing platforms that simulate how real attackers attempt to abuse Databricks' AI systems

Cross-Organizational Technical Leadership

• Serve as the technical authority on AI security engineering for the Product Security, SITH, IR, and ConMon teams — ensuring that AI security tooling outputs integrate cleanly into their workflows and meet their detection and assessment needs
• Represent AI Security Engineering in architecture reviews, platform security decisions, and cross-team technical discussions where AI security engineering considerations are material
• Establish AI security engineering standards that teams building AI-connected systems can adopt — reusable patterns for securing AI components in the Databricks platform

Mentorship & Team Capability

• Mentor senior and mid-level engineers on AI security engineering architecture, adversarial threat modeling, and technical leadership
• Lead design reviews, define team engineering practices, and drive continuous improvement in the quality and reliability of AI security tooling

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What We Look For

• 7–10 years of experience in security software engineering, security engineering, or a closely related discipline; with demonstrated technical leadership of security tooling programs and organizational-level impact
• Expert Python engineering: designs and delivers production systems at scale; understands observability, reliability engineering, and how security tooling integrates into larger security operations ecosystems
• Deep expertise in AI/ML security — adversarial ML, prompt injection, model security, agentic framework trust boundaries — at both a research-informed and engineering-practical level
• Experience designing security tooling architectures that span multiple teams and systems — not just building features, but defining how the platform is structured, scaled, and maintained
• Strong technical communicator: can align engineering and security leadership on architectural direction and drive cross-team adoption of standards and patterns
• Track record of shipping high-quality security tooling that other teams depend on in production

Nice to Have

• Research contributions or deep familiarity with adversarial ML, AI safety, or AI red-teaming methodology
• Experience with MLOps platforms, AI serving infrastructure, or AI platform security at cloud scale
• Familiarity with AI governance standards (NIST AI RMF, ISO/IEC 42001, EU AI Act technical provisions) as they apply to security engineering
• Open-source contributions or publications in AI security, adversarial ML, or security tooling

Pay Range Transparency

Databricks is committed to fair and equitable compensation practices. The pay range(s) for this role is listed below and represents the expected base salary range for non-commissionable roles or on-target earnings for commissionable roles.  Actual compensation packages are based on several factors that are unique to each candidate, including but not limited to job-related skills, depth of experience, relevant certifications and training, and specific work location. Based on the factors above, Databricks anticipated utilizing the full width of the range. The total compensation package for this position may also include eligibility for annual performance bonus, equity, and the benefits listed above. For more information regarding which range your location is in visit our page here.

Zone 1 Pay Range

$289,200—$397,650 USD

Zone 2 Pay Range

$260,300—$357,950 USD

Zone 3 Pay Range

$245,800—$338,050 USD

Zone 4 Pay Range

$231,400—$318,100 USD

About Databricks

Databricks is the data and AI company. More than 10,000 organizations worldwide — including Comcast, Condé Nast, Grammarly, and over 50% of the Fortune 500 — rely on the Databricks Data Intelligence Platform to unify and democratize data, analytics and AI. Databricks is headquartered in San Francisco, with offices around the globe and was founded by the original creators of Lakehouse, Apache Spark™, Delta Lake and MLflow. To learn more, follow Databricks on Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook.

**Benefits

**At Databricks, we strive to provide comprehensive benefits and perks that meet the needs of all of our employees. For specific details on the benefits offered in your region click here.

Our Commitment to Diversity and Inclusion

At Databricks, we are committed to fostering a diverse and inclusive culture where everyone can excel. We take great care to ensure that our hiring practices are inclusive and meet equal employment opportunity standards. Individuals looking for employment at Databricks are considered without regard to age, color, disability, ethnicity, family or marital status, gender identity or expression, language, national origin, physical and mental ability, political affiliation, race, religion, sexual orientation, socio-economic status, veteran status, and other protected characteristics.

Compliance

If access to export-controlled technology or source code is required for performance of job duties, it is within Employer's discretion whether to apply for a U.S. government license for such positions, and Employer may decline to proceed with an applicant on this basis alone.