Distinguished Engineer, R&D Lead

Secure Code Warrior

1d • Remote

About The Position

Join Secure Code Warrior to create a safer digital landscape by assisting companies to secure their software through developer-led practices! Secure Code Warrior’s mission is to establish new standards for coding that transform the ways software is created. We do this by providing the world’s leading agile learning platform that delivers the most effective secure coding solution for developers to learn, apply, and retain software security principles. More than 600 enterprises trust Secure Code Warrior to implement agile learning security programs, build safer software, and create a culture of developer-driven security. We are a venture-backed company with offices in Australia, the United States, Belgium, Iceland, and the United Kingdom. Software development is moving through its biggest shift ever — from human-written code, to AI-assisted development, to fully agentic systems where AI writes, tests, and deploys code autonomously. At every stage, enterprises face the same three problems: developers and agents need to learn to build securely, someone needs to govern what AI can and can’t touch in the codebase, and when something goes wrong, you need to know which AI did what, where, and for whom. Secure Code Warrior is building the control plane for secure AI software development. We are defining the AI Software Governance category — and this role exists to ensure the technical foundations of that category are sound, forward-looking, and defensible. As our first Distinguished Engineer and founding R&D Lead, your mandate is broad and deliberate: tackle the hardest unsolved problems on our roadmap, generate the technical intelligence that keeps us ahead of the market, and build the prototypes that prove — or disprove — the ideas that will define our next generation of product.

Requirements

• Seasoned engineer with 10+ years of experience and a track record of solving ambiguous, “blank page†architectural problems where the problem definition is part of the work (Distinguished or Principal-level Maker).
• Strong foundation in computer science with the ability to prototype rapidly in our tech stacks (Polyglot Prototyper).
• Deep practical knowledge of AI/LLM systems, agent frameworks, the MCP ecosystem, and the current state of AI coding tools and agentic development workflows (AI/LLM Specialist).
• Genuine curiosity about how developers work, following the evolving landscape of developer tools, IDE paradigms, and AI-assisted workflows.
• Ability to translate complex technical findings into actionable strategic intelligence for leadership, product, and content teams, with written output shaping decisions (Analytical Researcher).
• Comfortable operating across technical prototyping, market intelligence, and external engagement, demonstrating range, not just depth (Versatile and autonomous).
• Thrive in ambiguity, defining what to explore, not just how to build what’s been specified.
• Maker first — prototype to learn, ship to validate, and communicate through working software.
• Operate with autonomy and sound judgement, knowing when to go deep on a problem and when to call it and move on.
• Role model for the Warrior Code and Engineering Culture Code — collaborative, pragmatic, and a safe pair of hands even when operating in highly experimental territory.

Nice To Haves

• Background in developer tooling, observability, platform engineering, or application security tooling.
• Published work or demonstrated thought leadership in AI safety, secure code generation, agent governance, or related fields.
• Experience building or contributing to open-source developer tools or security frameworks.
• Existing network in the AI engineering or application security research communities.

Responsibilities

• Lead time-boxed R&D cycles to produce prototypes and clear recommendations (build, explore further, or stop) for ambiguous, cross-cutting technical challenges on the roadmap, such as unified risk modelling, signals for MCP and other services, and AI code detection accuracy.
• Own the technical discovery of how to deliver agent-consumable security intelligence from SCW's vulnerability patterns and secure coding challenges, exploring new technical questions emerging from fully agentic development, such as governing autonomous agents and defining code provenance for AI contributions.
• Provide structured intelligence by tracking real-world developer workflows, monitoring competitive dynamics, scanning emerging technology and academic research, and synthesizing it into regular outputs (monthly Developer Workflow Pulse, quarterly Landscape Brief) to inform product and content strategy.
• Convene the Frontier Pod, define the problem brief, draw in the right expertise from across product domains, and present findings at the end of each cycle with a clear recommendation.
• Attend major industry conferences, follow academic research on AI safety and secure code generation, and contribute to SCW’s thought leadership by publishing benchmarks, frameworks, and research.
• Hire your future team and shape what the R&D function becomes.

Benefits

• Opportunity to create impact, deliver on your ideas, and use your spark, experience and expertise.
• Full flexibility regarding working days, times, and methods.
• Generous leave options.
• Work from home options.
• Tight-knit team that values humility, diversity, and giving back to the community and to each other.
• Global, multicultural environment where every single person feels safe and celebrated.

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Principal
• Education Level: No Education Listed
• Number of Employees: 101-250 employees