Software engineer jobs in Los Angeles, CA

About the role

Wilson Sonsini is looking for a Senior AI Security Engineer to join the Security Operations team. This role is designed for someone who understands how models are attacked and how to harden them, and who is energized by the challenge of securing AI-native workflows in a legal environment. You will own the firm’s AI security engineering function: designing secure AI pipelines, evaluating MCP server integrations and agentic architectures, and serving as the technical authority for AI security across the firm’s growing ecosystem of AI-powered tools and platforms.

What you'll bring

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, cybersecurity, or a related technical field required
• 5+ years of experience in application security, cloud security, or AI/ML engineering, with at least 2 years focused on AI system security — building, breaking, or hardening LLM-based or agentic AI systems in production environments
• Hands-on familiarity with the Model Context Protocol (MCP) — including how MCP servers are structured, how tool definitions are exposed to models, how to audit MCP server codebases for injection vulnerabilities, and how to implement secure MCP deployment patterns in enterprise environments
• Demonstrated experience with AI threat modeling — including OWASP LLM Top 10, adversarial ML attack techniques (prompt injection, jailbreaking, data poisoning, model extraction), and practical mitigations that work in production rather than just in theory
• Solid command of cloud security fundamentals (AWS, Azure, or GCP) as applied to AI workloads — including secure API gateway configuration, secrets management for model API keys, network isolation for AI inference endpoints, and identity-aware proxy patterns for LLM access control
• Experience securing agentic AI systems — understanding how multi-step reasoning pipelines, tool-using agents, and autonomous AI workflows introduce novel attack surfaces, and how to implement guardrails, human-in-the-loop controls, and scoped permissions that prevent runaway or adversarially manipulated agents
• Relevant certifications (OSCP, GREM, Azure Security Engineer, or similar) are valued
• more important is demonstrated hands-on work — a strong GitHub profile, original research, or CTF wins speaks louder than credentials alone
• Intellectual curiosity and a builder’s mindset — this role is for someone who gets energized by the pace of AI development and who stays current not just by reading about AI security but by experimenting with models, tools, and attack techniques firsthand
• Comfortable working in a fast-moving environment where the AI landscape shifts faster than any governance framework can keep up — able to make sound risk judgments under ambiguity and bring stakeholders along with you
• Self-directed and resourceful — able to build a program from the ground up, prioritize intelligently across competing demands, and drive work to completion without waiting to be told exactly how
• The primary location for this job posting is in Palo Alto, but other locations may be listed.

Locations