--- title: 'Offensive Security RL Researcher at Idler' canonical: 'https://feeny.ai/job/offensive-security-rl-researcher-idler-san-francisco-pfs90khgnna7' type: 'job' last_seen: '2026-10-16' --- # Offensive Security RL Researcher at Idler - **Company:** Idler - **Location:** San Francisco, CA - **Compensation:** $200k–$500k - **Employment:** full-time - **Work type:** onsite - **Posted:** 2026-10-13 - **Last confirmed live:** 2026-10-16 - **Apply:** https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/idler/68bcbc1b-5e33-435c-a256-4edfb78067d1 ## Job description ## About idler idler is a frontier data research lab. We build the evals and environments that the world's leading frontier labs use to measure and train their models. After raising a $9m seed round led by Paradigm, we spent the last year developing coding evals for top coding models you know and love. At the same time, we've expanded into other domains besides coding: RSI & Auto-Research, Law, Enterprise Business, Cybersecurity, and others. Now, we are facing more lab demand for our data than we can serve, and are rapidly scaling the team to grow the business. Our approach to creating training data scales using technology, and all of our data products are built on a unified self-reinforcing platform that learns through experience. You would be joining a close-knit team that has reached product market fit, and your work would directly help to multiply our revenue. You can see some of our work here: https://idler.ai/collections ## About the role idler is looking for an elite security researcher who can also build. You'll lead idler's cybersecurity work: deciding which environments we build, building and running the systems that produce them, recruiting and managing the part-time experts who review them, and working directly with researchers at frontier AI labs to understand what they need and sell them what we build. You're a security researcher first. We need someone whose judgment about what counts as a real vulnerability, what makes a task fair, and where the field's genuine skill hierarchy actually sits, we can trust without double-checking. Software development is the tool you use to put that judgment into a production pipeline — it's not a second, parallel discipline we're hiring for separately. One note on scope: if idler stops investing in cybersecurity, you'd move to a different project inside the company rather than leave — we want to say that plainly now rather than have it be a surprise later. ## What you'll do - Drive the roadmap for idler's cybersecurity evals and environments, and decide — using our cybersecurity capability map — which environments we build next and where we put engineering resources. - Build and run the systems that produce those environments yourself; you'll write production code where it matters, not just spec it out for someone else to build. - Recruit, onboard, and manage the part-time cybersecurity experts who review our environments for fairness, correctness, and quality. - Work directly with researchers at frontier AI labs to understand what cybersecurity capabilities and data they want, and sell them the environments that meet it. ## Requirements - 3+ years of experience in a professional cybersecurity role, with a track record that puts you in the top 5% of your peers by reputation. - Deep hands-on experience in at least one of: web app pentesting, bug bounty hunting, vulnerability/zero-day research, hacking agents, or AI security. - Well-connected within the security community — this makes recruiting and evaluating the part-time experts you'll manage far easier. - Comfortable writing and shipping production code (Python, TypeScript, or similar). You don't need a decade of software engineering experience, but you need to build and maintain the systems your research depends on, not hand that off entirely. - Strong written communication — you'll justify prioritization calls to researchers and explain findings to people who didn't do the work themselves. You might excel if you… - Have a public bug bounty track record, live-hacking-event invitations, Pwn2Own placements, or published original research — send us a writeup of some of the best bugs you've ever found. - Have managed or mentored other security researchers or hackers before. - Have thought seriously about how to measure or grade security work that isn't simply pass/fail. - Have built tools or automation to support your own research, even if you wouldn't call yourself a software engineer. Details - In-person in San Francisco - $200K–$500K base salary + meaningful equity. - We'd sponsor and co-publish AI security research under your name. - Healthcare, 401(k), 15 days of PTO per year. - Relocation assistance - Small, ambitious team. We're a tight-knit founding team and we play to win. Join us if you like to win too. ## About Idler ## Company Overview - **One-liner**: Idler builds reinforcement learning environments that teach AI models to code at expert human levels, using real-world coding scenarios to prepare them for production challenges. - **Entity Type**: Private (Pre-Seed, YC Summer 2025) - **Headquarters**: San Francisco, California, United States - **Founded**: 2025 - **Founders**: Nalu Concepcion, Ivan Chub, Tony Goss ## Core Business - **Primary industry**: Artificial Intelligence / Reinforcement Learning - **Target customers**: Frontier AI labs, research organizations, and enterprises developing large language models (B2B, Enterprise) - **Mission**: To create the training data layer for frontier AI by building environments that teach models to code like the top 0.01% of engineers. ## Products & Services - **Reinforcement Learning Training Environments**: A platform that generates synthetic coding challenges and real-world scenarios for training AI models via reinforcement learning. These environments are designed to teach models complex, production-level coding skills. ## Market Standing - **Valuation**: Not disclosed - **Key Metrics**: - **Total Funding**: $500,000 (Pre-Seed round led by Y Combinator, October 2025) - **Annual Revenue**: Estimated at $22.5M (LinkedIn estimate; likely a projection or early revenue figure for a 2025 startup) - **Notable Investors/Partners**: Y Combinator (lead investor), Harj Taggar (primary partner) - **Growth Signals**: - Secured a multimillion-dollar contract with a leading foundation lab (largest they have issued to date) - Rapidly scaling team (currently 13-14 employees) to meet demand that outpaces delivery capacity - Active hiring for Software Engineers, Staff Software Engineer, and Special Projects Operator roles ## Competitive Advantages - **Focus on Real-World Scenarios**: Unlike generic coding datasets, Idler’s environments simulate the complex, messy challenges models face in production, making trained models more capable and reliable. - **Early Frontier Lab Contracts**: Already landed multimillion-dollar deals with top AI labs, validating demand and providing real-world feedback loops. - **Y Combinator Backing**: Part of the prestigious Summer 2025 batch, providing network, credibility, and early-stage support. ## Strategic Focus - **Scale Training Data Production**: Rapidly expand capacity to build environments for frontier AI models, aiming to become the default training data layer for reinforcement learning in coding. - **Hire Top Engineering Talent**: Grow the team (currently ~13) with senior engineers and operators who can move fast and think deeply about training data quality. - **Maintain In-Office Culture**: All employees work in person at the Dogpatch office in San Francisco to foster tight collaboration and rapid iteration. ## Why Work Here - **Culture**: Tight-knit founding team that moves quickly, thinks deeply about data, and “plays to win.” Emphasis on high agency and ownership. - **Work Environment**: 100% in-office at the Dogpatch neighborhood in San Francisco. No remote/hybrid option. - **Perks & Benefits**: - Competitive salary ($140K–$400K depending on role) plus equity (0.05%–1.0%) - Free daily meals, snacks, and drinks - Health insurance, 401(K), generous PTO, paid holidays - Wellness initiatives and company-sponsored outings - Office perks including on-site workspace - **Engineering Culture**: Uses modern stack (Next.js, React, TypeScript, PostgreSQL, Redis, Honeycomb, GitHub). Emphasis on building high-quality training data infrastructure. ## Sources 1. [ycombinator.com](https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/idler) 2. [linkedin.com](https://www.linkedin.com/company/idler) 3. [builtin.com](https://builtin.com/company/idlersai) 4. [ycombinator.com/jobs](https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/idler/jobs) 5. [builtinsf.com](https://www.builtinsf.com/company/idlersai) ## Other roles at Idler - [Executive Assistant](https://feeny.ai/job/executive-assistant-idler-san-francisco-kw6f4cb7sgs5) — San Francisco, CA - [Special Projects Operator](https://feeny.ai/job/special-projects-operator-idler-san-francisco-0dq5yx0nt757) — San Francisco, CA - [Research Scientist](https://feeny.ai/job/research-scientist-idler-san-francisco-1tr3n99m2wt8) — San Francisco, CA - [Design Engineer](https://feeny.ai/job/design-engineer-idler-san-francisco-6jc914e1vqp3) — San Francisco, CA - [Forward Deployed Engineer](https://feeny.ai/job/forward-deployed-engineer-idler-san-francisco-5dydyq60g5jp) — San Francisco, CA - [Software Engineer](https://feeny.ai/job/software-engineer-idler-san-francisco-safkzyj6b8y6) — San Francisco, CA