Security Software Engineer, AI & Automation

NerdWallet

Security Software Engineer focused on AI and automation at NerdWallet. Collaborating with teams to improve security processes and develop AI-powered solutions.

Posted 5/22/2026full-timeRemote • California • 🇺🇸 United StatesMid-LevelSenior💰 $127,000 - $207,000 per yearWebsite

Tech Stack

Tools & technologies

AWSCloudDistributed SystemsGoKubernetesNoSQLPythonRedis

About the role

Key responsibilities & impact

Partner closely with security engineering and infrastructure teams to build automation and AI-powered solutions that help identify vulnerabilities, improve security reviews, and reduce risk across our platforms
Take ownership of security engineering initiatives that combine software development, AI systems experience, and security-first thinking to solve meaningful problems at scale
Design and build multi-agent LLM systems and routing logic that automate threat modeling, security design review, policy Q&A, and vulnerability analysis at scale
Develop retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) pipelines and semantic search systems across large code and documentation repositories
Create automated code review capabilities that help identify insecure patterns and improve software quality earlier in the development lifecycle
Design integrations with tools such as GitHub, Slack, Jira, Confluence, and cloud platforms to embed security guidance into everyday engineering workflows
Develop REST APIs and platform services with authentication, authorization, rate limiting, observability, and secure handling of sensitive data
Design and maintain scalable data processing pipelines for large codebases and document repositories, including extraction, indexing, stream processing, batch jobs, and parallel execution
Improve AI application security through controls such as prompt injection prevention, sensitive data filtering, supply chain security, and secure handling of model inputs and outputs
Enhance NerdWallet's secure software development lifecycle (SSDLC) through automation, tooling, and developer-friendly security practices
Partner with engineering teams to prioritize and remediate application and infrastructure security risks
Support incident response and on-call needs by contributing security engineering expertise, tooling, automation, and analysis when security issues arise
Identify new opportunities for automation and AI augmentation across the security team, bringing fresh eyes and independent thinking to a growing backlog of high-impact work

Requirements

What you’ll need

3+ years of software engineering or security engineering experience
Strong proficiency in Python or Go for building production-grade backend services, APIs, and data pipelines; comfort moving between languages is expected
Experience building and maintaining backend services including REST APIs, authentication, authorization, rate limiting, streaming, and observability
Working knowledge of application security concepts including common vulnerability classes such as injection, broken authentication, cross-site scripting, insecure authorization, and secrets exposure; experience with threat modeling and SSDLC practices
Hands-on experience building AI-powered systems using LLM APIs, including retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) pipelines, multi-agent architectures, and semantic search; working understanding of AI-specific security risks such as prompt injection, sensitive data exposure, and secure handling of model inputs and outputs
Genuine interest in AI and how it applies to security, not just as a tool to use, but as a domain to understand deeply, including its limitations and risks
Experience developing and operating distributed systems and cloud-based environments, including message queues, NoSQL databases, AWS, containers, Kubernetes or ECS, serverless, and infrastructure as code
Understanding of caching and performance patterns including Redis, semantic caching, TTLs, and cache invalidation
Strong communication skills, able to explain complex AI and security concepts clearly to both technical and non-technical audiences, and confident advising stakeholders on tradeoffs and limitations.

Benefits

Comp & perks

Industry-leading medical, dental, and vision health care plans for employees and their dependents
Rejuvenation Policy – Flexible Vacation Time Off + 11 holidays + holiday company shutdown
New Parent Leave for employees with a newborn child or a child placed with them for adoption or foster care
Mental health support
Paid sabbatical after 5 years for Nerds to recharge, gain knowledge, and pursue their interests
Health and Dependent Care FSA and HSA Plan with monthly NerdWallet contribution
Monthly Wellness Stipend, Cell Phone Stipend, and Wifi Stipend (Only remote Nerds are eligible for the Wifi Stipend)
Work from home equipment stipend and co-working space subsidy (Only remote Nerds are eligible for these stipends)

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Hard Skills & Tools

PythonGoREST APIsdata pipelinesAI-powered systemsretrieval-augmented generation (RAG)multi-agent architecturessemantic searchapplication securitysecurity-first thinking

Soft Skills

strong communication skillsindependent thinkingability to explain complex conceptsadvising stakeholdersownership of initiatives