Security Engineer, Lead

About Chai Discovery

Chai Discovery is re-architecting drug discovery by building frontier AI foundation models to design molecules.

The founding Chai team has brought together the leading researchers in this space, with seminal research accomplishments at top AI labs. The team has led AI-for-biology programs at premier labs, co-invented protein language modelling, built state-of-the-art folding algorithms, and sold AI adopted by top-10 pharma companies. The company is backed by top-tier investors, including OpenAI, Thrive Capital, Dimension, Conviction, Lachy Groom, Amplify, and many more.

We’re looking to add a few members to our team of scientists and engineers, who obsess over creating the most powerful AI models for antibody discovery, and turning them into products that can transform how medicines are made.

About the role

As a Security Engineer, you will serve as the technical and strategic driver for the company's security posture. In this landscape, security is a top priority and your mission is to build the security backbone that protects the data and models driving tomorrow’s life-saving therapies - every control you design helps turn breakthrough science into medicines for millions. You will lead a small but growing team of security engineers, partnering with product and infrastructure groups to design, implement, and continuously improve secure‑by‑design solutions that scale. You design, deploy, and operate detection & response capabilities and serve as incident commander for high‑severity security incidents, coordinating investigation, containment, and remediation.

At Chai, we’re entering a pivotal stage. After years of foundational R&D, our models are moving beyond protein structure prediction and into real-world therapeutic engineering. We're now tasking our AI models on a broad spectrum of drug development challenges, at an exciting scale of wet-lab validation.

This is not a typical role — it’s a chance to push the boundaries of drug discovery by building some of the most advanced AI drug design models ever built.

About you

We’re looking for a builder-mindset security leader who wants to set the gold standard for protecting AI-driven drug discovery. You should have:

Significant security experience:

• 8+ years of progressive experience in information security, with at least 2 years leading or managing engineering teams

• Demonstrated expertise in cloud security (AWS, GCP, or Azure) and container security (Docker/Kubernetes)

• Hands‑on experience building and operating detection & response pipelines and handling incidents end‑to‑end

• Deep understanding of network protocols, authentication, encryption, and modern zero‑trust architectures

• Familiarity with compliance and risk frameworks (SOC 2, ISO 27001, PCI‑DSS) and ability to translate requirements into technical controls

Technical leadership:

• Can architect and enforce zero‑trust network segmentation, IAM policies, and least‑privilege access

• Proven ability to define a security-engineering roadmap that balances R&D velocity, compliance, and business risk

• Track record producing clear security metrics, KPIs, and risk-posture updates for executives and boards

Collaboration and mindset:

• Exceptional verbal and written communication skills

• Comfortable partnering with DevOps, ML infrastructure, compliance, and legal to embed security in every layer of the stack

• Ability to lead and mentor a team of security engineers, setting clear objectives and reviewing performance

• Thrives in fast-moving, high-ambiguity environments where first-principles thinking matters more than checklists

What we offer

• Frontier technology: we’re developing the next frontier of AI-driven drug discovery that will fundamentally change how new therapeutics are created.

• World-class team: opportunity to work with world-renowned leaders in the AI x biology and technology ecosystem who have created some of the most impactful advancements.

• Highly competitive compensation: we offer highly competitive salary, equity package, and healthcare and wellness benefits.

• Velocity and ownership: we move incredibly fast, which means continuous learning and career growth opportunities are a guarantee. Every team member owns a significant slice of the roadmap.

• Strong team culture: Collaborative and supportive startup culture in a small and high-energy team who are guided by our mission to increase the efficiency of creating new medicines and positively impact millions of lives.