Principal Software Engineer - Security
Principal Engineer focused on AI/ML security in DigitalOcean's CISO organization, owning the company's AI security strategy, governance framework, and multi-year roadmap. Day-to-day work spans AI red teaming (jailbreak, prompt injection, poisoning, model extraction), threat modeling across the AI lifecycle, deploying ML-based security detection, and briefing executives on AI risk — built on Python
- Compensation
- Not disclosed
- Location
- Bengaluru
- Work setup
- Not specified
- Seniority
- Principal
- Employment
- Not specified
- Experience
- 4+ years
- Category
- Software engineering
- Posted
Skills
Must have
- 15+ years of experience in cybersecurity, with at least 4-5 years focused on AI/ML security, adversarial ML, or security data science in a production cloud or technology environment
- Track record of defining and driving AI or security programs at an organizational level — owned a strategy, not just implemented one
- Deep practitioner-level knowledge of adversarial ML attack and defense: evasion, poisoning, model extraction, membership inference, and prompt injection
- Ability to read, evaluate, and synthesize academic AI security research and translate it into engineering guidance and policy
- Experience engaging executive and senior leadership audiences on technical risk
- Strong programming skills in Python and Go with a track record of building security tooling and automation
- Proficiency reviewing and critiquing AI/ML system architecture (data ingestion, feature engineering, training pipelines, model serving, continuous monitoring)
- Hands-on experience with AI red-team and defensive tooling and with model supply-chain frameworks
- Bachelor's or Master's degree in Computer Science, Information Security, Mathematics, or a related field — or equivalent depth of practical experience
Nice to have
- Fluency in OWASP LLM Top 10, MITRE ATLAS, NIST AI RMF, ISO/IEC 42001, and the EU AI Act
- Prior experience in a cloud provider, security product company, or large-scale internet platform where AI/ML systems operate at significant customer-facing scale
- Familiarity with LLM security in production: securing RAG pipelines, agentic frameworks, and model APIs against prompt injection, jailbreaking, and data exfiltration
Full description
Dive in and do the best work of your career at DigitalOcean. Journey alongside a strong community of top talent who are relentless in their drive to build the simplest scalable cloud. If you have a growth mindset, naturally like to think big and bold, and are energized by the fast-paced environment of a true industry disruptor, you’ll find your place here. We value winning together—while learning, having fun, and making a profound difference for the dreamers and builders in the world.
We are looking for a Principal Engineer, AI/ML Security who is passionate about securing AI systems and operationalizing ML-powered security at cloud scale.In this role, you will join the CISO’s organization and partner closely with Security Data Science and Security leadership teams. You will lead DigitalOcean’s engagement with the external AI security community and serve as our internal expert and escalation point for all AI-related security risk.
What You’ll Do:
- Partner with Product Security and Engineering leadership to define how AI security controls are integrated into DigitalOcean’s customer-facing products
- Partner with Security Data Science to build and deploy detection strategies, guardrails, and security tooling/automations. Partner with Security Engineering to implement online and batch inference endpoints to serve in-house AI/ML models. Participate in ongoing monitoring of deployed models to detect drift, evaluate performance, and plan and implement improvements alongside model stakeholders.
- Adversarial testing / AI red teaming: lead jailbreak, prompt-injection, evasion, poisoning, and model-extraction testing
- Lead security reviews of major AI product initiatives from design through launch, providing architectural sign-off and escalation guidance for high-risk decisions.
- Threat modeling across the AI lifecycle: data ingestion, training/fine-tuning, evaluation, model serving, RAG, agent frameworks, and post-deployment monitoring
- Own and drive DigitalOcean’s AI Security strategy and multi-year roadmap, defining where we invest, what risks we prioritize, and how AI security evolves as the threat landscape and product portfolio change.
- Architect and lead the AI Risk & Governance framework: establishing policies, standards, and controls for the responsible development, deployment, and monitoring of AI/ML systems across DigitalOcean and Cloudways.
- Represent AI security at executive and board-level briefings; communicate risk posture, program progress, and strategic decisions to the CISO and senior leadership in clear, business-contextualised terms.
- Define DigitalOcean’s position on emerging AI security topics including agentic AI, model supply chain risk, synthetic data integrity, and AI-enabled social engineering