Palo Alto, CA (On-Site/Hybrid)|Full-time|Engineering|Posted Feb 8, 2026
About Us
We're a venture-backed startup headquartered in downtown Palo Alto, preparing for a public launch later in 2026. Backed by leading institutional investors and strategic angels, we're building a verified operating system designed to run at national scale.
Our platform brings together digital identity, secure communication, modern money movement, and intelligence-driven services in a single system. Built on modern financial rails and applied AI, it supports real-world use cases such as payments, remittances, and digital services - designed for reliability, security, and scale.
We're starting with deployments across markets where modern infrastructure meets real operational demand, and expanding globally from there. Initial institutional deployments are underway, with commercial agreements in place and revenue already being realized.
If you're motivated by building durable systems and shaping the next generation of digital infrastructure, we'd love to build with you.
The Opportunity
We're looking for a staff+ level Security Engineer to join as an early team lead and own the design and evolution of security architecture, systems hardening, and incident response across the platform.
This is not a compliance role. It's a hands-on builder position focused on designing and implementing secure infrastructure, data protection, authentication and authorization flows, and threat detection systems for a platform that handles sensitive communication, digital identity, and modern money movement at national scale.
You will own the security architecture, posture, and execution of the platform end to end—setting standards, designing systems, and partnering across engineering, product, and compliance. This role is intended for a senior security leader who has operated security-critical systems in production and understands the realities of systems that run at national scale.
What You Will Own
You will own the security architecture, posture, and execution of the platform end to end—setting standards, designing systems, and partnering across engineering, product, and compliance. This role is intended for a senior security leader who has operated security-critical systems in production and understands the realities of systems that run at national scale.
Security Architecture & Infrastructure
-Define and implement end-to-end security architecture across backend, mobile, and cloud environments (GCP preferred).
-Establish zero-trust foundations, including network segmentation, service-to-service authentication (mTLS), secrets management, and key rotation.
-Design and enforce least-privilege IAM models across GCP, Kubernetes, and CI/CD systems (Terraform-based).
-Implement secure configuration baselines, vulnerability management pipelines, and compliance readiness (SOC 2, ISO 27001, PCI DSS where applicable).
Threat Modeling at National Scale
-Own threat modeling for systems operating at national scale, including adversaries targeting high-profile users, institutional infrastructure, and trust-critical workflows.
-Identify and mitigate threat vectors such as impersonation, coordinated abuse, account takeover, insider threats, supply-chain compromise, and large-scale manipulation attempts.
-Design defenses for elevated-risk scenarios, including concentrated traffic spikes, coordinated attacks, and attempts to exploit trust relationships.
-Ensure systems remain resilient under adversarial conditions that could impact system integrity, availability, or credibility.
-Translate threat models into concrete controls, safeguards, and operational readiness plans in partnership with engineering and product teams.
Risk Ownership & Decision Frameworks
-Own security risk assessment and prioritization, balancing threat likelihood, impact, and engineering cost.
-Define and maintain a clear framework for security risk acceptance, mitigation, and escalation, ensuring decisions are explicit, documented, and aligned with business realities.
-Partner with engineering, product, and leadership to make informed tradeoffs between velocity, usability, and security in high-impact areas.
Product & Application Security
-Lead threat modeling and security reviews for new product capabilities, including communication, communities, wallets, and remittance flows.
-Define secure API design principles, encryption standards (at rest and in transit), and secure messaging protocols.
-Establish automated code scanning, dependency checks, and secure CI/CD integration in collaboration with platform and DevOps teams.
-Champion a secure-by-design culture across engineering.
Payments & Identity Security
-Design end-to-end transaction security, including authentication, anti-fraud signals, and AML-related controls.
-Partner with backend and compliance teams to support Travel Rule, KYC, and data residency requirements.
-Define cryptographic key management practices for custodial and non-custodial wallets (e.g., MPC, HSM, KMS).
-Collaborate with external partners (e.g., wallet infrastructure providers, stablecoin issuers) to audit and secure cross-border transaction flows.
Detection, Response & Monitoring
-Build the security operations foundation, including log ingestion, alerting pipelines, and SIEM/SOC integrations.
-Define incident response, escalation, and root-cause analysis frameworks, including drills and runbooks.
-Deploy telemetry for intrusion detection, anomaly detection, and behavioral analytics across systems.
-Establish security standards, policies, and practices that set the bar for future hires and teams.
-Mentor engineers on secure coding, privacy, and incident handling.
-Represent the security function in product reviews, executive discussions, and external audits.
What You Bring
-Deep experience owning security for complex, distributed systems in production, with demonstrated impact at a Staff or Principal level. A track record of designing and operating security-critical infrastructure at scale, ideally in high-trust environments such as payments, identity, or large consumer platforms.
-Strong expertise across multiple security domains, including:
*Cloud Security: GCP preferred; experience with AWS or Azure also relevant. Deep understanding of IAM, VPC design, KMS, and secrets management.
*Infrastructure Security: Infrastructure-as-code (Terraform), policy-as-code, and secure CI/CD pipelines.
*Network & Platform Security: Network segmentation, service meshes, DDoS mitigation, and WAFs.
*Application Security: Secure API design, OAuth2 / OIDC, JWT, TLS, and data encryption practices.
*Payments & Fintech Security: Familiarity with PCI, crypto custody models, AML/KYC controls, and transaction security.
*Detection & Response: Building or operating incident detection, response, and forensic workflows (SIEM, SOC, alerting).
-Practical experience working with compliance and privacy frameworks such as SOC 2, ISO 27001, and GDPR—understanding how to meet requirements without slowing product velocity.
-Strong judgment and communication skills, with the ability to explain security tradeoffs clearly to engineering, product, leadership, and external stakeholders.
-A builder's mindset: motivated by automation, thoughtful use of AI in detection and response, and raising the security bar through systems—not process.
-Comfort operating in ambiguity, taking ownership, and acting as the security conscience of the company.
Why Join Us
Work That Matters
You'll help build critical financial and digital infrastructure that makes systems safer, faster, and more transparent at scale.
Frontier Problems
We operate at the intersection of identity, communities, modern money movement, and agent-driven services—complex, regulated domains that remain largely unsolved.
Global from Day One
Built in Silicon Valley and deployed across borders. What we ship has the potential to become core infrastructure for entire nations.
Real Ownership
You'll own clearly defined product and technical domains end to end, from strategy through execution and outcomes.
High-Agency Culture
High trust, low process, fast iteration. We value technical excellence and people who take initiative and act with ownership.
What We Offer
Compensation That Reflects Impact
Highly competitive salary plus meaningful equity, designed for people who want real ownership—not just upside.
Comprehensive Health Coverage
Top-tier medical, dental, and vision insurance for you and your dependents.
In-Person First
We work from the office three days a week to move fast and build together, with quarterly in-person all-hands.
Wellness Covered
Company-paid Equinox fitness membership to support wellbeing.
Meals Provided
All meals and beverages are covered on in-office days.
Commute Supported
Bay Area commuting expenses covered, including FasTrak, Caltrain, and BART.
Flexible Time Off
Flexible PTO with no preset cap—balanced by ownership, accountability, and outcomes.
Apply for this Position
Share your CV or LinkedIn profile and a brief note on why this role and our mission resonate.
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