Founding Security Engineer

Cascading AI Inc

$150K — $180K *
Finance & Insurance
Less than 5 years of experience
Job Overview by Ladders

Qualifications

  • 5-7 years of experience in Application Security (AppSec) with demonstrable results
  • Proficient in production coding with TypeScript/Node.js and Python
  • Deep understanding of security boundaries in multi-tenant systems
  • Ability to communicate risk effectively to engineering teams
  • Experience engaging with bank security teams, presenting confidently
  • Calmness under incident pressure and honesty during post-incident reviews
  • A proactive approach to building tools and processes that enhance efficiency

Responsibilities

  • Develop and maintain security software detections and libraries
  • Conduct design reviews and create threat models for key systems
  • Analyze AI attack surfaces and identify vulnerabilities
  • Manage incidents comprehensively, including documentation and resolution
  • Transform bank security reviews and audits into actionable engineering improvements

Benefits

  • Impact & Ownership in shaping the future of banking through AI
  • Collaborative work environment with a focus on team growth
  • Professional development resources and mentorship opportunities
  • A culture that encourages innovation and learning from failure
  • Competitive compensation package including potential equity
Full Job Description
Why this role exists

Our customers are FDIC-insured banks. Every one of them puts us through security review, control questionnaires, pen test results, and third-party risk assessment before we touch production. Then they hand us borrower tax returns, bank statements, and the data behind credit decisions on their own balance sheet.

So security isn't a compliance checkbox here. It's a precondition for the company existing. Every deal we win depends on it, and one bad breach ends the business.

The surface area is large and getting larger: a multi-tenant AI platform, a cloud estate under bank data-handling requirements, agents that read and act on customer data, and an engineering team shipping into all of it every day. Nobody can review their way across that. You build the guardrails, defaults, and tooling that scale past you.

What you'll own
  • Software. Detections, libraries, policy-as-code, automation, CI/CD checks - reviewed, tested, and deployed like any other service.
  • Design reviews and threat models on what actually matters: auth, tenant isolation, data handling, anything touching borrower PII.
  • The AI attack surface. Prompt injection, tool-use abuse, exfiltration paths through agents, and the evals that tell you whether your controls hold.
  • Incidents, end to end, including the write-up and the fixes that follow.
  • Bank security reviews and audits, turned into engineering work that improves the system rather than paperwork that describes it.


What we look for
  • Several years of experience in AppSec, with specifics you can walk us through: bugs you found, incidents you ran, systems you hardened, tooling you shipped.
  • You write production code. We work primarily in TypeScript/Node.js and Python.
  • You know where security boundaries break in multi-tenant systems, and why it's usually authorization.
  • You can explain risk to an engineer in engineering terms and get the fix shipped without escalating.
  • You can sit across from a bank's security team, take hard questions honestly, and leave them more confident than when you walked in.
  • Steady during incidents. Honest afterward.
  • You'd rather build leverage than become a bottleneck.


Helpful, not required
  • Securing LLM or agentic products in production.
  • Standing up a security function at a fast-growing company.
  • Working inside or selling into regulated financial institutions: SOC 2, GLBA, FFIEC guidance, third-party risk, exam support.
What you'll get:
  • Impact & Ownership: A unique opportunity to shape the future of banking through AI, owning end-to-end product initiatives.
  • Collaborative Environment: Work alongside a talented and passionate team that values continuous improvement and knowledge sharing.
  • Competitive Compensation: Includes salary, benefits, and potential equity in a fast-growing startup.
  • Professional Growth: Access to resources and mentorship to expand your skill set, influence strategy, and accelerate your career.
  • Culture of Innovation: We encourage risk-taking, learning from failures, and pushing the boundaries of what's possible in fintech.

As an early-stage company building at the frontier of AI, we work with high intensity and commitment. While schedules can vary by role/team, many weeks will demand extra focus, flexibility and time particularly during major launches and high impact sprints. We're seeking those who are aligned to and able to commit to that expectation.

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