Staff security engineer, application security

WRITER•New York, NY

1d•$183,000 - $240,000•Hybrid

About The Position

WRITER is hiring a Staff Security Engineer for its application security team. The role builds security foundations for the company’s AI platform and works across application security, AI infrastructure, and developer enablement. The engineer partners with product and engineering teams to embed security into development and help keep the platform trustworthy at enterprise scale. The position contributes to securing enterprise AI applications, including threat modeling LLM architectures, protecting data pipelines and model-training environments, and designing controls for customer-facing AI agents. The engineer will evolve the application security program, support secure development practices, and identify and address risks across applications, AI services, and APIs. The role is hybrid from WRITER’s New York City, San Francisco, or Seattle offices and reports to the Head of Security Engineering. The role is open to mid-, senior-, and staff-level candidates.

Requirements

At least 4 years of hands-on application security engineering experience, with a track record of securing large-scale production systems.
Understanding of developer experience and workflows for shipping features and products, with attention to reducing risk while maintaining engineering velocity.
Technical expertise in at least two of Python, Java, Go, and JavaScript/TypeScript, and ability to read and review code across multiple languages, including business logic and security implications.
Knowledge of SAST/DAST solutions, vulnerability management platforms, security testing frameworks, and DevSecOps practices.
Excellent communication skills, including the ability to explain complex security concepts and recommendations to technical and non-technical audiences and motivate teams to act.
A builder’s mindset focused on automation, scale, and empowering teams rather than creating bottlenecks.
Alignment with WRITER’s values of Connect, Challenge, and Own.

Nice To Haves

Experience in fast-growing startups or high-growth environments.

Responsibilities

Conduct threat-modeling sessions with product teams and design secure architectures for new features, incorporating security into product decisions from the outset.
Own and evolve the application security program, including establishing and maintaining SAST/DAST scanning in CI/CD pipelines, conducting security code reviews for critical changes, and automating vulnerability detection before production.
Partner with engineering teams to establish secure coding standards and create reusable security patterns and libraries that help developers build securely by default.
Design and recommend security features and products to protect customer environments.
Integrate and leverage AI agents to increase security-team and engineering-org velocity and proactively minimize risk.
Lead security assessments and penetration testing of WRITER applications, AI services, and APIs; identify vulnerabilities and work with teams to remediate them at scale.
Design and implement security controls to protect data pipelines, model-training environments, and customer-facing AI agents.
Research emerging AI/ML security threats and LLM and generative-AI attack vectors, and proactively build defenses against novel risks.

Benefits

Generous paid time off and company holidays.
Medical, dental, and vision coverage for employees and their families.
16 weeks of paid parental leave for all parents.
Fertility and family-planning support.
Early-detection cancer testing through Galleri.
Flexible spending account and dependent FSA options.
Health savings account for eligible plans, with a company contribution.
Annual wellness stipend for expenses such as gym, massage/chiropractor, and personal training.
Annual learning and development stipend.
Company-wide and team off-sites.
Competitive compensation.
Company stock options.
401(k).