Security Engineer - Palo Alto

About Rivian · Rivian is on a mission to keep the world adventurous forever. This goes for the emissions-free Electric Adventure Vehicles we build, and the curious, courageous souls we seek to attract. · As a company, we constantly challenge what's possible, never simply acceptin ...

Job description

About Rivian

Rivian is on a mission to keep the world adventurous forever. This goes for the emissions-free Electric Adventure Vehicles we build, and the curious, courageous souls we seek to attract.

As a company, we constantly challenge what's possible, never simply accepting what has always been done. We reframe old problems, seek new solutions and operate comfortably in areas that are unknown.

Our backgrounds are diverse, but our team shares a love of the outdoors and a desire to protect it for future generations.

Role Summary

As a Security Software Engineer at Rivian, you will sit at the intersection of cybersecurity, software engineering, and artificial intelligence.

Your role is not just to "guard" the AI; it is to engineer the solutions that allow our AI/ML teams to move fast without breaking safety.

You will act as a bridge-writing the code that secures our infrastructure while partnering directly with data scientists and ML engineers to validate new systems before they touch production.

You will play a key role in maturing Rivian's AI security posture from "ad-hoc" to "systematic." We are open to location on this role and report to our Sr.

Manager, Cybersecurity.

Responsibilities

Collaborative Design & Validation (The "Consultant-Builder")

Security Reviews:
Partner with AI product teams during the design phase to review architecture.

You will ask the hard questions:
Where is this data stored? How is this model isolated? What happens if the prompt is malicious?

Threat Modeling:
Participate in (and eventually lead) threat modeling sessions for new ML features. You will help teams identify risks in their RAG (Retrieval-Augmented Generation) pipelines or autonomous training loops.

Validation:
Don't just trust the design; verify it.

Work with QA and Engineering to validate that security requirements (like authZ scopes or encryption) are actually implemented correctly in the final code.

Engineering & Tooling (The "SWE" Core)

Build "Paved Roads":
Write Python or Go libraries that make doing the "secure thing" the "easy thing" for data scientists. (e.g., a library that automatically handles token encryption for ML jobs).

Automate Compliance:

Instead of asking teams to fill out spreadsheets, build automation that scans our Kubeflow/MLflow clusters to verify they meet security baselines.

Secure Code Contribution:

Submit Pull Requests directly to ML repositories to fix vulnerabilities or harden logic, rather than just filing tickets for others to fix.

Maturing AI Security (The "Growth" Aspect)

Define Standards:
Help write the "Gold Standard" documentation for how to deploy a secure model at Rivian. You will turn tribal knowledge into engineering standards.

Vulnerability Management:

Assist in triaging findings from bug bounties or internal scans related to our AI surface, and track the "Time to Remediate" to help us understand our maturity gaps.

Research & Proto-typing: Stay ahead of the curve.

Spend time researching new AI attacks (like Model Inversion) and prototype defenses to see if they work in our environment.

Qualifications


Must-Haves:
Strong Engineering Foundation: 2+ years of software engineering experience. You write clean, tested code (Python preferred) and understand the SDLC.

Security Mindset:
Experience looking at a system design and identifying where it might break. You understand concepts like "Least Privilege," "Defense in Depth," and "Input Validation."

Communication Skills:

You can explain a security risk to a Data Scientist without using jargon, and you can explain an ML constraint to a Security Engineer.

Understanding of AI/ML:

You understand the basic components of an AI system (Data Lake -> Training -> Model Registry -> Inference API) and where security fits into that flow.

Nice-to-Haves:
Experience with AWS or Google Cloud Platform cloud security architecture.
Experience using or securing Vector Databases or LLM orchestrators (like LangChain).

Previous experience in an embedded, automotive, or IoT environment (understanding that code eventually runs on a vehicle or physical hardware).

Pay Disclosure

Salary Range for this role is$105,100 - $131,400 for California based applicants and $88,300 - $110,400 for Georgia based applicants.

This is the lowest to highest salary we in good faith believe we would pay for this role at the time of this posting.

An employee's position within the salary range will be based on several factors including, but not limited to, specific competencies, relevant education, qualifications, certifications, experience, skills, geographic location, shift, and organizational needs.

The successful candidate may be eligible for annual performance bonus and equity awards.

We offer a comprehensive package of benefits for full-time and part-time employees, their spouse or domestic partner, and children up to age 26, including but not limited to paid vacation, paid sick leave, and a competitive portfolio of insurance benefits including life, medical, dental, vision, short-term disability insurance, and long-term disability insurance to eligible employees.

You may also have the opportunity to participate in Rivian's 401(k) Plan and Employee Stock Purchase Program if you meet certain eligibility requirements.

Full-time employee coverage is effective on their first day of employment. Part-time employee coverage is effective the first of the month following 90 days of employment. More information about benefits is available at

You can apply for this role through (or through internal-careers- if you are a current employee). This job is not expected to be closed any sooner than March 20, 2026.

Equal Opportunity

Rivian is an equal opportunity employer and complies with all applicable federal, state, and local fair employment practices laws.

All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, national origin, ancestry, sex, sexual orientation, gender, gender expression, gender identity, genetic information or characteristics, physical or mental disability, marital/domestic partner status, age, military/veteran status, medical condition, or any other characteristic protected by law.

Rivian is committed to ensuring that our hiring process is accessible for persons with disabilities. If you have a disability or limitation, such as those covered by the Americans with Disabilities Act, that requires accommodations to assist you in the search and application process, please email us at

Candidate Data Privacy

Rivian may collect, use and disclose your personal information or personal data (within the meaning of the applicable data protection laws) when you apply for employment and/or participate in our recruitment processes ("Candidate Personal Data").

This data includes contact, demographic, communications, educational, professional, employment, social media/website, network/device, recruiting system usage/interaction, security and preference information.

Rivian may use your Candidate Personal Data for the purposes of (i) tracking interactions with our recruiting system; (ii) carrying out, analyzing and improving our application and recruitment process, including assessing you and your application and conducting employment, background and reference checks; (iii) establishing an employment relationship or entering into an employment contract with you; (iv) complying with our legal, regulatory and corporate governance obligations; (v) recordkeeping; (vi) ensuring network and information security and preventing fraud; and (vii) as otherwise required or permitted by applicable law.

Rivian may share your Candidate Personal Data with (i) internal personnel who have a need to know such information in order to perform their duties, including individuals on our People Team, Finance, Legal, and the team(s) with the position(s) for which you are applying; (ii) Rivian affiliates; and (iii) Rivian's service providers, including providers of background checks, staffing services, and cloud services.

Rivian may transfer or store internationally your Candidate Personal Data, including to or in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, and the European Union and in the cloud, and this data may be subject to the laws and accessible to the courts, law enforcement and national security authorities of such jurisdictions.

Please note that we are currently not accepting applications from third party application services.