Staff Info Sec AI Researcher

Your work will turn security findings into durable defensive improvements, including remediation guidance, engineering-ready fix proposals, reusable AI-SDLC patterns, secure coding guidance, and product-security insights that reduce exposure and raise the bar for secure engineering at Sonatype.

Key Responsibilities:

•  Identify and prioritize meaningful security risks across first-party code, services, infrastructure, build pipelines, and software supply chain components.

• Validate findings for exploitability, severity, affected products, business impact, and remediation priority.

• Collaborate with Security Research and Product to translate novel findings, malicious component discoveries, and emerging attack patterns into research-ready outputs, product improvements, detection opportunities, and customer-facing intelligence.

•  Work closely with Application Security and Engineering to move validated findings through remediation and reduce repeat vulnerability patterns.

• Champion modern AI-SDLC practices by translating recurring vulnerability classes, insecure coding patterns, and effective remediation approaches into reusable guidance, detection logic, secure coding standards, and remediation playbooks. 

•  Create clear remediation guidance, engineering-ready fix proposals, and pull requests where appropriate.

We’re seeking an experienced engineer who thrives in an agile, collaborative environment and enjoys tackling technical challenges.

Minimum Qualifications:

• 8+ years of professional software engineering experience, including 2+ years in a Staff Engineer or equivalent technical leadership role.

• Proven experience identifying, validating, and helping remediate vulnerabilities in production software, services, APIs, infrastructure, or software supply chain components.

• Strong ability to read, understand, and reason about complex codebases, preferably including Java, Kotlin, or other JVM-based backend systems. 

• Hands-on experience with application security testing methods and tools, such as SAST, DAST, SCA, secret scanning, threat modeling, secure code review, or vulnerability validation.

• Practical experience using AI-assisted engineering, security analysis, or automation techniques to improve software quality outcomes.

• Ability to translate security findings into clear remediation guidance, engineering-ready recommendations, and practical risk-based priorities. 

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related field—or equivalent practical experience.

• Strong communication and collaboration skills, with experience working across Application Security, Engineering, Product, or Security Research teams. 

•  Solid understanding of cloud-native architecture, CI/CD workflows, build pipelines, containers, and modern DevOps practices. 

•  Passion for raising the security bar through technical leadership, mentoring, secure engineering practices, and continuous improvement.

•  Relevant certifications such as:

  • SANS Certifications: GSEC, GCIH, GCLD, GCID, GMON

  • (ISC)² Certifications: CISSP, CC, SSCP, CCSP, CAP, CSSL