Principal Product Security Researcher - Chainguard

Chainguard is the trusted source for open source. By delivering hardened, secure, and production-ready builds of all the open source software engineers and AI agents rely on, Chainguard helps organizations build faster, stay compliant, and eliminate risk.

Our customers include Fortune 500 enterprises and global industry leaders, including Anduril, Canva, Fortinet, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, OpenAI, Snap Inc., and Snowflake.

Chainguard is venture-backed by leading investors, including Amplify, IVP, Kleiner Perkins, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Mantis VC, Redpoint Ventures, Sequoia Capital, and Spark Capital.

As a Principal Product Security Researcher at Chainguard, you’ll lead our product security research function end-to-end: mapping emerging threats, turning insight into strategy, and helping Chainguard stay several moves ahead of attackers across our entire product portfolio.

The Role, In a Nutshell

Chainguard prioritizes our customers’ security above all else, which means preparing not just for the attacks of today, but for those of tomorrow as well. In this Principal-level role, you’ll:

• Own the product security research agenda for Chainguard, scanning the broader ecosystem, identifying emerging attack patterns, and translating them into clear risks and opportunities.
• Shape security direction across products and platforms, partnering closely with Product, Engineering, and Security leadership to embed your findings into roadmaps.
• Drive the agenda and discussion topics across the whole industry, helping everyone understand what is important and where the risks are.

What You’ll Do

• Research emerging threats & trends in software supply chain and product security, and analyze their impact on Chainguard’s products and customers.
• Design creative mitigations across people, process, and technology into pragmatic defenses that actually get adopted.
• Partner with executive and senior engineering leadership to drive org-level security strategy and influence key roadmap decisions.
• Identify systematic weaknesses and develop plans that fix root causes in ways that persist long-term.
• Mentor and uplevel others across Product Security and Engineering by helping teams think more strategically about threats and risk.
• Represent Chainguard externally through talks, conferences, and thought leadership.

You Might Be a Great Fit If You

• Bring deep experience in product or application security, with a track record of leading research or threat-focused work that drove company-level outcomes.
• Have expert knowledge across multiple domains such as secure architecture, application/product security, software supply chain, and org-level risk management.
• Are comfortable owning ambiguous, cross-functional problems and turning them into structured, prioritized initiatives.
• Have a proven ability to present complex ideas to executive stakeholders, gaining alignment and driving decision-making at the highest levels.
• Stay at the cutting edge of industry trends, tooling, and research methods.
• Work independently with high ownership while remaining a generous collaborator.

About Us

We live and breathe our company values:

• Customer obsessed: We focus on delivering solutions that create value and make lives better.
• Bias for intentional action: We prioritize, plan, try things, and fail fast.
• Don't take ourselves too seriously: We solve serious problems with focus, but enjoy the journey.
• Trust each other: We assume good intentions and maintain transparency.

Benefits

• Flexible & Remote-First Culture: Work remotely with team meetup opportunities, bi-annual destination summits, and a monthly stipend for coworking spaces, phone, and internet costs.
• Our Approach to Equity: Receive stock options upon hire and promotion, with participation in secondary offerings and 10 years to exercise options.
• 100% Covered Health Insurance: We cover 100% of your health, vision, and dental insurance premiums for you and your dependents.
• ∞ Flexible Time Off: Take the time you need to recharge and reset.
• 18 Weeks Paid Parental Leave: 18 weeks for birthing parents and 12 weeks for non-birthing parents.