Security Field Engineer

Modal•New York, NY

About The Position

Modal provides the infrastructure foundation for AI teams, offering instant GPU access, sub-second container startups, and native storage to simplify training models, running batch jobs, and serving low-latency inference. They serve thousands of customers, including Lovable, Scale AI, Substack, and Suno. Modal is a fast-growing team with offices in NYC, SF, and Stockholm, having achieved 9-figure ARR and recently raised a Series B at a $1.1B valuation. Working at Modal offers early-stage opportunities for growth within one of the fastest-growing AI infrastructure organizations. The team comprises creators of popular open-source projects, academic researchers, international olympiad medalists, and experienced engineering and product leaders. The Security Field Engineer role is pivotal in building customer trust and accelerating deals by owning the external representation and defense of Modal's security posture. This hands-on, technical position involves direct engagement with customer security teams, translating architecture and controls into clear, credible narratives, and ensuring external presentations accurately reflect internal system operations. The role also requires identifying patterns in customer requirements to drive improvements in both product and security posture.

Requirements

Experience in security engineering, security GRC, or solutions engineering in a technical product company
Strong experience engaging with customer security teams or supporting enterprise sales
Solid understanding of modern cloud architectures (AWS/GCP/Azure), APIs, and distributed systems
Ability to explain security controls (auth, isolation, encryption, logging, etc.) in real systems
Comfortable going deep with engineers and equally comfortable explaining concepts to customers
Highly responsive and action-oriented—able to operate in deal-critical timelines
Identifies patterns and drives improvements, not just one-off answers
Strong written and verbal communication skills

Responsibilities

Lead technical security conversations with customers and prospects
Respond to security reviews, deep-dive calls, and architecture discussions
Clearly explain our systems, controls, and tradeoffs to sophisticated security teams
Partner with Sales and GTM to unblock deals and accelerate security approvals
Own responses to complex security questionnaires and RFPs
Build credibility with customer security stakeholders through clear, consistent communication
Own and evolve customer-facing security materials (trust center, whitepapers, architecture docs)
Ensure external messaging accurately reflects internal systems and controls
Continuously improve how we communicate security to reduce friction and ambiguity
Identify recurring customer requirements and gaps in our security posture
Work with engineering to prioritize and implement meaningful improvements
Translate customer expectations into concrete, actionable technical changes
Improve how we handle inbound security reviews (automation, knowledge base, workflows)
Evaluate and implement tools to scale customer security interactions