Research Engineer / Software Engineer (platform / core infrastructure)

About XBOW

At XBOW, we’re redefining the future of cybersecurity by building the world's first autonomous pentester, powered by AI. Today, the gold standard for securing software systems is human pentesters, but with the rise of artificial intelligence, we’re stepping up to scale offensive security to meet the ever-growing demand.

AI is transforming the landscape of both cybersecurity and cyberattacks. While millions of people without security expertise are creating software, bad actors are using AI to launch more effective attacks. XBOW fights back with AI-driven superpowers, enabling security teams to stay one step ahead. Our autonomous AI solves 75% of web app security benchmarks with zero human intervention—and at superhuman speed.

What makes XBOW truly unique? Like human experts, it forges creative attacks, adapts its learnings, and continuously works to find vulnerabilities faster than anyone ever could. We’re not only simulating threats—we’re also finding and responsibly disclosing real-world vulnerabilities, ensuring organizations can fix issues before they’re exploited. XBOW isn’t just a tool; it’s a transformative force in the secure development lifecycle.

Backed by Sequoia Capital and a team that includes the creators of GitHub Copilot and GitHub Advanced Security, XBOW is not just keeping up with the times—we’re shaping the future of cybersecurity. Our mission is simple: to defeat the bad actors before they strike, using AI to revolutionize how we approach offensive security.

We’re building something thatmust be built, and we’re the team to do it. Join us in shaping the next frontier of autonomous security.

Your Role: Research Engineer (platform/core infra)

We’re looking for a Platform Engineer who thrives on making systems scale—horizontally, reliably, and securely. In this role, you’ll be responsible for designing and tuning the infrastructure that powers our AI engine and distributed analysis systems. You’ll work deeply with AWS, OpenSearch, and our core backend stack (TypeScript and Kotlin), and help lay the technical foundation for how XBOW scales as we grow.

This is a role for someone who sees infrastructure as a product, loves clean abstractions, and knows how to dig into performance issues across layers. You’ll join a high-trust, high-velocity team where your work will have an immediate impact on both developer experience and product performance.

What You'll Do

• Design and implement infrastructure that supports horizontally scalable systems and services

• Tune and optimize AWS services across compute, storage, networking, and observability

• Own the performance, reliability, and maintainability of core services—especially our OpenSearch-based systems

• Design for resilience by implementing disaster recovery and business continuity strategies that ensure uptime, even when things break

• Write infrastructure-aware code in TypeScript and Kotlin (experience not required, learning mindset is key)

• Improve how we build, deploy, and monitor services at scale

• Drive a pragmatic and scalable observability strategy—building the right dashboards, alerts, and traces to help the team move fast and debug confidently

• Partner closely with engineers, AI researchers and Security researchers to enable high-quality, high-velocity product development

Who You Are

• Strong experience with cloud infrastructure (especially AWS) and scaling distributed systems

• A track record of performance tuning across cloud services, databases, and compute layers

• Familiarity with modern observability practices (logs, metrics, tracing) and how to apply them

• You’re familiar with hybrid deployments (cloud + on-prem) and know how to build resilient systems that handle the complexity of mixed environments.

• Experience working on infrastructure used by other engineers (internal platforms, dev tooling, etc.)

• Strong knowledge of IaC tools (Terraform, CDK, Pulumi, etc.)

• You’re passionate about observability and excited to roll up your sleeves to build a scrappy, scalable monitoring strategy from the ground up

• You think proactively about failure modes and bring experience implementing disaster recovery and business continuity plans that keep critical systems running.

• Comfort working in a fast-paced startup and navigating ambiguity

• Curious, practical, and eager to work across layers of the stack when needed

Bonus Points

• Hands-on experience with OpenSearch or Elasticsearch at scale

• Previous experience building platform teams or working on internal developer platforms

What We Offer

• Compensation & Equity: Competitive salary and a generous equity package, making you a true owner of the company.

• Career Growth: Shape your role, lead the function, and grow with the company as we redefine cybersecurity.

• Meaningful Work: You will tackle technically complex challenges and play a pivotal role in the growth of our business, working alongside an amazing team and some of the world’s experts to shape how AI transforms cybersecurity.

What Else You Should Know

• Location: Remote (all team members are remote but we meet regularly and you’re supported to travel to collaborate with colleagues in person)

• Contract: Full-time.

• Hiring Process:

  1. 30-min introductory chat.

  2. 30 minutes with one of our founders.

  3. 2-3 hour technical deep dive around relevant case study.

  4. 30-min final meeting with our CEO and founder, Oege de Moor.

We don’t use seniority titles at XBOW—so if you’re worried about “leveling,” don’t be. We care a lot more about mission fit, capability, and impact than what’s on your LinkedIn headline.

We believe in people who are driven by curiosity and a willingness to learn. Even if you don't check every box, we encourage you to apply if you're excited about the role and our mission.