Senior Software Engineer, AI Security

Tanium•Durham, NC

2h•$191,000 - $293,000

About The Position

Tanium is seeking a Senior Software Engineer to help build a new AI Security solution that enables large enterprises to secure AI agents and the endpoints they run on. This full-stack role has a strong emphasis on backend engineering. The engineer will design and develop high-scale, distributed systems that give customers visibility into and control over agentic AI across their environments. The role calls for expertise in building reliable, performant services at scale, a foundation in security principles, and hands-on familiarity with technologies used for AI agents and agent harnesses, including LLM integrations, tool-calling frameworks, and the Model Context Protocol (MCP). The engineer will work across the software development lifecycle, collaborate with product management, UX, and engineering peers, and partner with security and infrastructure teams. The position also includes leading code reviews, mentoring engineers, troubleshooting complex defects and performance issues, and improving engineering processes and practices. This role involves access to internal systems, administrative credentials, and cloud infrastructure. The employee is expected to handle such access responsibly and in accordance with Tanium's security policies, access control procedures, and data handling guidelines. The position is full-time, with an annual base salary range of $191,000 to $293,000. New hires may also receive equity awards and a benefits package that includes medical, dental, and vision plans, family planning benefits, savings accounts, a 401(k) plan with company match, insurance coverage, employee assistance programs, and other well-being benefits. Team members receive five days of volunteer time off.

Requirements

Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, or a related technical field, or equivalent experience.
At least 8 years of professional software engineering experience building and shipping production-quality software.
Demonstrated experience designing and implementing distributed systems or large-scale, high-availability applications.
Experience building and shipping AI-powered products or agents at scale, including LLM integrations and tool-calling.
Hands-on experience building an MCP server or integration that ran in a production environment.
Experience building RAG and the data pipelines that support it.
Experience building backend services and enterprise web applications serving large user bases, such as millions of users.
Experience across the full software development lifecycle, including requirements analysis, design, implementation, testing, and deployment.
Proficiency in one or more modern programming languages such as Go, C++, Java, Python, or similar.
Ability to prompt AI coding tools effectively and read, understand, refactor, and debug the resulting code, regardless of language.
Strong understanding of software design patterns, data structures, and algorithms.
Experience with version control systems, particularly Git, and collaborative development workflows.
Demonstrates initiative and motivation.
Excellent oral and written communication skills.
Ability to work as a team player and act with high ethics and integrity.
Ability to work in a fast-paced, changing environment.
Ability to handle internal systems, administrative credentials, and cloud infrastructure responsibly and in accordance with Tanium's security policies and procedures.

Nice To Haves

Experience working in a cybersecurity, SaaS, or enterprise software environment.
Foundation in security principles, such as secure design, authentication and authorization, and threat modeling.
Familiarity with cloud infrastructure platforms such as AWS, Azure, or Google Cloud.
Familiarity with containerization and orchestration technologies such as Docker and Kubernetes.
Experience with CI/CD pipelines and automated testing frameworks.

Responsibilities

Design and develop high-scale, distributed backend systems that give customers visibility into and control over agentic AI across their environments.
Build services and integrations using LLM APIs, tool-calling frameworks, and the Model Context Protocol (MCP), and design retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) and data pipelines for AI-driven capabilities.
Use AI coding assistants and agent tooling in day-to-day development, and review, refactor, and debug AI-generated code.
Design and develop robust, scalable, and maintainable software features and systems across the full software development lifecycle.
Architect technical solutions that meet product requirements while balancing performance, reliability, and security.
Collaborate with product management, UX, and peer engineers to define requirements, estimate effort, and deliver solutions on schedule.
Lead code reviews and provide constructive technical feedback to promote engineering standards and best practices.
Identify, troubleshoot, and resolve complex software defects and performance bottlenecks in development and production environments.
Mentor and support junior and mid-level engineers through knowledge sharing, pairing, and technical guidance.
Improve engineering processes, tooling, and development practices to increase team velocity and code quality.
Partner with security and infrastructure teams to ensure software aligns with Tanium's security and compliance standards.
Protect Tanium information and assets and comply with Tanium policies and applicable agreements.
Handle access to internal systems, administrative credentials, and cloud infrastructure in accordance with security policies, access control procedures, and data handling guidelines.