Head of Security

The Role

As the first Security hire at Nous Research, you'll build and own security end-to-end across our infrastructure, products, and enterprise deployments. Nous builds open-source AI language models and agents, including Hermes Agent, which is used by consumers and Fortune 500 enterprises across multi-tenant SaaS, dedicated VPC, self-hosted, and air-gapped environments.

This is a hands-on-keyboard role for someone who wants to harden multi-cloud infrastructure, secure a novel agentic AI platform, and build the security foundation regulated enterprise customers demand. You'll be the person focused full-time on protecting the company while helping the rest of the team continue shipping quickly.

Responsibilities

• Own production security across a multi-cloud footprint spanning AWS, GCP, Azure, and Vercel.
• Secure multi-tenant SaaS, dedicated VPC, self-hosted Kubernetes, and air-gapped deployments.
• Secure the Hermes Agent platform across sandboxing, kernel-level file system and network isolation, agent identity, credential controls, egress controls, and trace integrity.
• Own SOC 2 technical controls, evidence collection, remediation, and ongoing readiness.
• Harden identity and access management, including SSO and SAML consolidation, least-privilege access reviews, 2FA, and BYOD policies.
• Lead vulnerability management, penetration testing, incident response, and cloud-native security monitoring.
• Strengthen the secure software development lifecycle through practical controls, including peer-review requirements, while maintaining high development velocity.
• Support enterprise deals by completing security questionnaires, leading architecture reviews, and addressing penetration-testing requirements.
• Partner across engineering, infrastructure, product, FDE, and operations to identify and address security risks.

Qualifications

• 8+ years of security engineering experience, with deep hands-on expertise in infrastructure and multi-cloud security.
• Track record securing production SaaS environments and owning security end-to-end at a fast-growing technology company.
• Strong Kubernetes, identity, and IAM fundamentals, including familiarity with enterprise SSO, SAML, and SCIM.
• Experience implementing compliance-driven engineering programs such as SOC 2 or ISO 27001 without allowing them to become checkbox exercises.
• Strong understanding of vulnerability management, incident response, access controls, penetration testing, and secure software development practices.
• Interest in securing agentic AI systems and addressing emerging risks across agent identity, tool permissions, prompt injection, and data provenance.
• Ability to work effectively in a high-velocity, open-source-native engineering culture.
• Security-minded by default and pragmatic in practice, with strong judgment around balancing protection and development speed.

Nice-to-Have

• Experience supporting regulated customers, financial services organizations, or air-gapped deployments.
• Prior experience securing AI, machine learning, or open-source systems.
• Experience with detection and response tooling in cloud-native environments.
• Familiarity with kernel-level sandboxing, network isolation, and agent security.
• Experience supporting Fortune 500 security reviews, architecture assessments, and penetration-testing requirements.