Senior AI Systems Engineer - AI & Cybersecurity

Senior AI Systems Engineer

Washington, DC (Onsite 5 Days Per Week)

$160,000 - $250,000 Base Salary + Equity

About Croutch & Associates

Croutch & Associates is partnering with a venture-backed AI and cybersecurity company building next-generation technology at the intersection of artificial intelligence, offensive security, and large-scale systems engineering.

Our client is developing AI-powered platforms designed to automate and enhance cyber operations, vulnerability research, and security analysis. Backed by leading investors and serving government and enterprise customers, they are assembling a world-class engineering team focused on solving some of the most technically challenging problems in cybersecurity.

This is an opportunity to join a small, high-performing team where engineers have direct ownership, significant technical autonomy, and the ability to influence both product and company direction.

About the Role

We are seeking a Senior AI Systems Engineer to help build production-grade systems that power AI-driven vulnerability research, security analysis, and cyber operations.

This is not a prompt engineering role.

The ideal candidate has deep low-level systems expertise and enjoys working close to operating systems, runtime environments, performance optimization, and production infrastructure. You will partner closely with engineers, researchers, and security specialists to transform complex manual processes into scalable, automated systems.

This role requires strong technical judgment, a builder mindset, and the ability to thrive in highly ambiguous environments.

What You'll Do

• Design and develop production systems supporting AI-driven cyber operations

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• Build scalable software platforms for vulnerability research and security automation
• Work directly with operating systems, kernel interfaces, runtime environments, and low-level system components
• Optimize software performance, reliability, and scalability
• Own projects from architecture and design through deployment and maintenance
• Collaborate with engineering and security teams to automate complex workflows
• Develop tools and infrastructure that support large-scale cyber and AI initiatives
• Contribute to engineering standards, technical strategy, and platform architecture

Required Qualifications

• 2+ years of professional software engineering experience
• Strong experience with operating systems, systems programming, or low-level infrastructure
• Experience working with Linux internals, kernel-level concepts, runtime systems, or similar technologies
• Proficiency in one or more of the following: C++, Rust, Go, Python, or C
• Strong understanding of performance optimization and production software development
• Ability to own technical projects end-to-end
• Excellent problem-solving and debugging skills

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• Comfortable operating in fast-paced and ambiguous environments
• Ability to obtain security clearances required for government-related work
• Willingness to work onsite in Washington, DC

Preferred Qualifications

• Vulnerability research experience
• Capture The Flag (CTF) competition background
• Reverse engineering experience
• Offensive security or exploit development experience
• Cybersecurity startup experience
• Open-source contributions involving operating systems or security tooling
• Experience working with AI or machine learning systems
• Startup experience as an early employee or technical founder

What Success Looks Like

• Delivering production-ready systems that support AI-powered cyber operations
• Building highly performant infrastructure and tooling
• Automating previously manual security workflows
• Contributing to the technical direction of a rapidly growing engineering organization
• Becoming a trusted technical leader across engineering and security teams

Compensation & Benefits

• Base Salary: $160,000 - $250,000
• Equity: 0.25% - 0.75%
• Comprehensive Benefits Package
• Relocation Assistance Available
• Opportunity to work alongside top-tier engineers and security professionals
• Direct impact on cutting-edge AI and cybersecurity initiatives

Location

Washington, DC (Onsite)

Relocation assistance is available for qualified candidates.