Senior Software Engineer

About Tenzai Tenzai is building autonomous AI hackers that think like the world's best offensive security experts, act like them, and then help fix what they find before the real ones do. If this mission speaks to you, come defend the world's software: autonomously, continuously, and in-depth.

About The Role We’re looking for a Senior Software Engineer to join our R&D team and take a key role in building the core platform behind Tenzai’s autonomous security agents.

This is a highly technical, hands-on role combining backend engineering, platform architecture, cloud infrastructure, and production ownership. You’ll work on complex engineering challenges around agent execution, secure access to customer environments, multi-region deployments, data isolation, and the infrastructure that enables our agents to operate safely and at scale.

We’re looking for a strong, independent engineer who enjoys solving deep technical problems and owning solutions end-to-end.

Responsibilites:

• Design Design and build core backend and platform capabilities that power our autonomous security agents
• Build production-grade services in Python and Rust, with a growing focus on Rust
• Own complex features end-to-end — from architecture and backend implementation to infrastructure and production
• Build secure mechanisms for agents to access customer environments, credentials, and sensitive information while maintaining strict isolation and preventing data exposure
• Design systems that separate agent execution from the core platform and enable agents to operate securely and independently
• Build and scale multi-region cloud infrastructure, supporting data residency and regional deployment requirements
• Design networking and execution infrastructure that allows customers to control where and how security testing is performed
• Build internal tools and capabilities that agents can securely use as part of autonomous security workflows
• Work closely with Security Research, AI/ML Research, Product, DevOps, and other engineering teams
• Take ownership of reliability, scalability, observability, and production performance

Requirements:

• 7+ years of software engineering experience, with a strong focus on backend or platform development
• Strong experience building complex, production-grade backend systems
• Experience with Python, Rust, Go, C++, or another systems/backend language; willingness to work primarily with Rust over time
• Strong understanding of distributed systems, microservices, APIs, databases, and cloud architectures
• Hands-on experience with cloud environments such as AWS and modern containerized infrastructure
• Experience owning systems in production, including reliability, monitoring, debugging, and performance
• Ability to work across different engineering layers when needed — backend, infrastructure, and occasionally UI
• Strong system design and problem-solving skills
• Highly independent, hands-on, and comfortable taking ownership of ambiguous and complex problems
• Comfortable working in a fast-paced startup environment

Advantages

• Experience building platform, control plane, management, or orchestration systems
• Experience with Kubernetes, cluster management, storage systems, or large-scale distributed infrastructure
• Experience with multi-region architectures, data residency, networking, or infrastructure isolation
• Experience with SRE, DevOps, or production infrastructure
• Experience in cybersecurity, AppSec, identity, or security infrastructure
• Experience building infrastructure for AI agents, automation platforms, or other autonomous systems
• Experience with Rust in production

Why Tenzai:

• Working on problems that matter - Software is now written and deployed faster than it can be secured. Attackers are beginning to use AI to find vulnerabilities at scale. Tenzai exists to close that gap. It's a mission that requires elite hackers, and also sharp storytellers, wicked-smart operators, and experienced market builders.
• Building a category in the making - Tenzai is defining a new category in cybersecurity. That means every team — from research and engineering to product, brand, and go-to-market — has a chance to shape how the industry understands and adopts autonomous security. If you thrive building something from zero and helping a new idea take hold in the world, keep reading.
• Talent density - We believe small teams of exceptional people outperform large organizations. Tenzai was founded by veteran security experts and repeat entrepreneurs. We hire deliberately and value curiosity, initiative, and craftsmanship, whatever your discipline.
• Creating real impact, quickly - Whether you're building systems, shaping product experiences, telling the story, or helping customers succeed, your work will immediately influence how organizations secure their software. We move quickly, keep teams lean, and give humans ownership.
• Ambition with humility - We're tackling hard problems with a team that values deep expertise and thoughtful collaboration. Everyone here is learning, experimenting, and pushing the boundaries of what's possible. Plus, we love eating lunch together.