Senior Penetration Testing Engineer, AWS Gen AI Security - Seattle, United States - Amazon

Description

Do you enjoy finding unique security flaws in artificial intelligence and cloud systems? Do you enjoy protecting customers by securing AI and AWS services at scale? Do you enjoy mentoring and leading engineers to solve complex security problems in cutting-edge technologies? On the AWS Gen AI security team, as a Senior Security Engineer you will be responsible for the delivery of continuous assessments. You will be asked to solve complex technology problems, build tools to automate your way out of manual efforts, and influence the way Amazon services, primarily Gen AI services respond to and mitigate threats.

Our team is responsible for manually evaluating the security of all Gen AI products, services and software released by AWS. We specialize in uncovering subtle vulnerabilities that automated tools miss, and develop custom tooling to scale our security efforts across Amazon's expanding Gen AI landscape. The AWS surface area is large and diverse, and we use insights from manual testing to continually improve our focused automation to proactively identify and fix potential issues before customers are impacted.

We are looking for a Senior Penetration Testing Engineer to help ensure our services, applications, and websites are designed and implemented to the highest security standards. You will be responsible for application and/or hardware penetration testing. You will be responsible for automating repetitive tasks using various scripting languages. You will be responsible for mentoring and leading other engineers to deliver complex penetration tests and vulnerability assessments. You will be expected to drive automation, tooling, efficiency and advance the teams penetration testing capabilities. You will be responsible for influencing Amazon services through the creation of threat mitigation plans. You will work directly with internal teams to solve challenging software and security problems.

Key job responsibilities

• Perform penetration testing complex proprietary software and hardware for AWS Gen AI services like Bedrock, Amazon Q, and Code Whisperer.
• Manually audit the source code of web services and software authored in house by Amazon
• Write proof of concept code to demonstrate the severity of a potential security issue
• Provide clear communication on issues to developers that suggest and help to test the fix
• Partner with AWS developers to drive improvement in application security as a result of security review engagements
• Provide actionable long-term risk mitigation guidance to internal and external stakeholder
• Conduct independent vulnerability research pertaining to Gen AI technologies

About the team

Diverse Experiences

Amazon Security values diverse experiences. Even if you do not meet all of the preferred qualifications and skills listed in the job description, we encourage candidates to apply. If your career is just starting, hasn't followed a traditional path, or includes alternative experiences, don't let it stop you from applying.

Why Amazon Security

At Amazon, security is central to maintaining customer trust and delivering delightful customer experiences. Our organization is responsible for creating and maintaining a high bar for security across all of Amazon's products and services. We offer talented security professionals the chance to accelerate their careers with opportunities to build experience in a wide variety of areas including cloud, devices, retail, entertainment, healthcare, operations, and physical stores.

Work/Life Balance

We value work-life harmony. Achieving success at work should never come at the expense of sacrifices at home, which is why flexible work hours and arrangements are part of our culture. When we feel supported in the workplace and at home, there's nothing we can't achieve.

Inclusive Team Culture

In Amazon Security, it's in our nature to learn and be curious. Ongoing DEI events and learning experiences inspire us to continue learning and to embrace our uniqueness. Addressing the toughest security challenges requires that we seek out and celebrate a diversity of ideas, perspectives, and voices.

Training and Career growth

We're continuously raising our performance bar as we strive to become Earth's Best Employer. That's why you'll find endless knowledge-sharing, training, and other career-advancing resources here to help you develop into a better-rounded professional.

We are open to hiring candidates to work out of one of the following locations:

Arlington, VA, USA | Atlanta, GA, USA | Austin, TX, USA | Herndon, VA, USA | San Diego, CA, USA | San Francisco, CA, USA | Seattle, WA, USA | Virtual Location - USA

Basic Qualifications

• A Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Cybersecurity, Information Security, degree in similar technical field, or equivalent professional experience can be used in lieu of a degree.
• Minimum 2 years of experience in auditing AI/ML systems, models, and frameworks for security vulnerabilities.
• Minimum of 5 years of experience in security testing (Penetration testing, Vulnerability testing, Red teaming, bug hunting, CTF experience, or related field).
• Minimum of 5 years of experience with manually auditing source code (One or more of: Java, Ruby, Python, JavaScript, Rust, C, others) to find security issues.
• Minimum of 5 years of experience scripting in Python or other equivalent interpreted languages.
• Minimum of 5 years of professional experience with 2 or more areas of security engineering practices such as in web application security, network security, authentication and authorization protocols, cryptography, automation and other software security disciplines.
• Experience with AWS AI technologies and services (e.g. SageMaker, Code Whisperer, Bedrock, etc).

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience testing and securing distributed systems at AWS scale.
• Experience with the architecture of GenAI models, platforms, and applications.
• Knowledge of common AI/ML attack techniques such as prompt injection and ability to automate testing for these vulnerabilities.
• Ability to identify vulnerabilities and threats specific to GenAI and other AI/ML systems.
• Background in adversarial machine learning and emerging attacks like data poisoning, model extraction, membership inference, etc.
• Experience with languages commonly used in AI/ML like Python, R, Java, C++.
• Meets/exceeds Amazon's leadership principles for this role.
• Meets/exceeds Amazon's functional/technical depth and complexity expectations for this role.

Amazon is committed to a diverse and inclusive workplace. Amazon is an equal opportunity employer and does not discriminate on the basis of race, national origin, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, protected veteran status, disability, age, or other legally protected status. For individuals with disabilities who would like to request an accommodation, please visit

Pursuant to the San Francisco Fair Chance Ordinance, we will consider for employment qualified applicants with arrest and conviction records.

Our compensation reflects the cost of labor across several US geographic markets. The base pay for this position ranges from $136,000/year in our lowest geographic market up to $247,600/year in our highest geographic market. Pay is based on a number of factors including market location and may vary depending on job-related knowledge, skills, and experience. Amazon is a total compensation company. Dependent on the position offered, equity, sign-on payments, and other forms of compensation may be provided as part of a total compensation package, in addition to a full range of medical, financial, and/or other benefits. For more information, please visit This position will remain posted until filled. Applicants should apply via our internal or external career site.