---
title: 'Security Engineer at Vast.ai'
canonical: 'https://feeny.ai/job/security-engineer-vast-ai-los-angeles-5p7ef9m994ce'
type: 'job'
last_seen: '2026-09-10'
---

# Security Engineer at Vast.ai

- **Company:** Vast.ai
- **Location:** Los Angeles, CA
- **Employment:** full-time
- **Work type:** onsite
- **Posted:** 2026-07-03
- **Last confirmed live:** 2026-09-10
- **Apply:** https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/vastai/a582c45e-c237-4fd2-b144-642fe423f3a9

## Job description

## About Us

[Vast.ai](https://vast.ai)’s cloud powers AI projects and businesses all over the world. We are democratizing and decentralizing AI computing—reshaping our future for the benefit of humanity. We are a growing and highly motivated team dedicated to an ambitious technical plan. Our structure is flat, our ambitions are out‑sized, and leadership is earned by shipping excellence. We seek engineers with strong intrinsic drive, a true passion for advancing the state of the art, and a mix of architecture, coding, and communication skills. LOCATION: On-site at our office in Westwood, Los Angeles.

## About the Role

We are seeking a skilled Security Engineer to join our dynamic team. We hire people with broad skill sets who also exhibit deep expertise. The ideal candidate will have experience in both offensive and defensive security, strong software development skills, and deep knowledge of Linux systems and containerization. This role provides the opportunity to work on cutting-edge GPU cloud technologies, tackle complex security challenges at scale, and directly enhance the resilience and trustworthiness of our infrastructure and services. You Are

- A problem-solver who thrives in a fast-paced environment
- Committed to continuous improvement and staying updated with the latest security practices and cloud technologies
- A team player with strong communication skills, able to bridge the gap between development and security

## Responsibilities

- Collaborate with Operations Team: Partner with our operations team to ensure compliance with relevant standards such as SOC 2, ISO 27001, and GDPR
- Secure Architecture Design: Develop and implement secure architectures for our GPU cloud platform
- Security Assessments: Conduct security assessments, threat modeling, code reviews, and penetration testing
- Security Improvements: Develop and implement security fixes and improvements in collaboration with engineering teams
- Security Tools Management: Implement and manage security tools and systems, including SIEM, WAF, and EDR
- Documentation: Create and maintain security documentation, including policies, procedures, and technical guidelines
- Security Training: Provide security guidance and training to engineering teams to foster a security-first culture
- Incident Response: Participate in incident response activities and contribute to post-incident analysis and improvements

Required Qualifications

- Educational: Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Cybersecurity, or a related field.
- Programming: Strong programming skills in at least one language, ideally Python or C.
- Linux and Virtualization: Extensive knowledge of Linux kernel internals, containerization technologies, and virtualization
- Isolation Techniques: Deep understanding of workload and network isolation techniques in multi-tenant environments
- Cloud Security: Experience in securing and hardening cloud infrastructure, particularly in environments with untrusted workloads
- Network and Application Security: Strong background in network security, application security, and cloud-native security practices
- Security Testing Tools: Experience with security testing tools and methodologies, such as OWASP, Burp Suite, and static/dynamic analysis tools
- Cybersecurity Frameworks: Familiarity with common cybersecurity frameworks, including SOC 2, NIST, and CIS Controls

## Preferred Qualifications

- Security Certifications: Relevant security certifications such as CISSP, CCSP, or OSCP.
- DevSecOps Experience: Experience with DevSecOps practices and tools in cloud environments.
- Regulatory Compliance: Familiarity with regulatory compliance requirements for operating cloud services.
- GPU Security: Experience with GPU programming and an understanding of GPU-specific security concerns.

## Benefits

- Comprehensive health, dental, vision, and life insurance
- 401(k) with company match
- Meaningful early-stage equity
- Onsite meals, snacks, and close collaboration with founders/tech leaders
- Ambitious, fast-paced startup culture where initiative is rewarded

## About Vast.ai

## Company Overview
- **One-liner**: Vast.ai operates a decentralized GPU marketplace that enables developers and AI agents to provision and manage compute power across a global network of hardware, offering a cost-effective alternative to hyperscaler clouds.
- **Entity Type**: Private (raised $30M in funding)
- **Headquarters**: Los Angeles, CA (1100 Glendon Ave, STE 1840) and San Francisco, CA (100 1st Street, STE 2250)
- **Founded**: 2016 (incorporated June 28, 2016)
- **Founders**: Jake Cannell (CEO) and Christian Horne

## Core Business
- **Primary industry**: Cloud infrastructure / GPU compute / AI infrastructure
- **Target customers**: AI researchers, ML engineers, AI agent developers, enterprises needing GPU compute for training and inference
- **Mission**: "To organize, optimize, and orient the world's computation."
- **Vision**: "To make life substrate-independent through Vast Artificial Intelligence."

## Products & Services
- **GPU Cloud**: On-demand instances across 20,000+ GPUs in 40+ data centers. Deploy via CLI, SDK, Python API. Per-second billing. Real-time pricing set by supply and demand. [vast.ai](https://vast.ai/)
- **Serverless Inference**: Deploy models as endpoints with automatic GPU optimization, auto-scaling to zero, pay-per-compute-time. [vast.ai](https://vast.ai/)
- **GPU Clusters**: Dedicated multi-node clusters with InfiniBand networking for large-scale training. [vast.ai](https://vast.ai/)
- **API & SDK**: REST API, Python SDK, CLI for programmatic compute provisioning. Agent-native interface for autonomous compute procurement. [vast.ai](https://vast.ai/)

## Market Standing
- **Valuation**: Not publicly available
- **Key Metric**: Total funding $30M (as of 2026, per jobsbyculture.com) [jobsbyculture.com](https://jobsbyculture.com/blog/working-at-vast-2026)
- **Notable Investors/Partners**: Not disclosed in available sources
- **Growth Signals**:
  - 310% year-over-year growth (2024–2025)
  - 20,000+ GPUs, 350+ hosts, 700K+ transactions/month
  - SOC 2 Type I certification achieved in 2024
  - Enterprise and Secure Cloud offerings launched; customers include professional data center partners
  - Headcount grew from fully distributed team to 40+ employees across two offices (LA & SF) [vast.ai/about](https://vast.ai/about)
  - Conflicting reports: jobsbyculture.com cites ~30 employees, while vast.ai/about states "40+ employees"

## Competitive Advantages
- **Decentralized marketplace model**: Taps into underutilized GPU hardware (gaming rigs, mining farms, research labs, small data centers) to offer compute at 3–5x cheaper than AWS, no contracts required.
- **Agent-ready infrastructure**: The same API used by developers is designed for AI agents to autonomously procure and optimize compute – a moat for the upcoming agentic economy.
- **Real-time, transparent pricing**: Prices set by supply and demand, programmatically queryable via API. No hidden costs or enterprise sales friction.
- **Heterogeneous hardware support**: 68+ GPU types across 40+ data centers, enabling users to compare and switch between hardware types easily.
- **SOC 2 certified**: Security and compliance for enterprise workloads.

## Strategic Focus
- **Agentic compute**: Building an "infrastructure layer where AI agents design, procure, and optimize their own compute" [vast.ai](https://vast.ai/)
- **Enterprise expansion**: Growing Secure Cloud (certified data centers) and dedicated cluster products for professional customers.
- **Scaling the network**: Increasing GPU count, host partnerships, and geographic diversity while maintaining real-time pricing and low latency.
- **Open infrastructure**: Keeping compute distributed and independent, countering hyperscaler concentration.

## Why Work Here
- **Culture**: "High level of rigor, precision, and professionalism" – employees are stakeholders who own the impact of their work. Fast-paced startup environment where initiative is rewarded. [vast.ai/about](https://vast.ai/about)
- **Work location**: On-site in Los Angeles (Westwood) or San Francisco (SOMA). Not remote – all current openings require on-site presence.
- **Perks**: Comprehensive health/dental/vision insurance, 401(k) with company match, meaningful early-stage equity, onsite meals and snacks, close collaboration with founders and tech leaders. [vast.ai/jobs](https://vast.ai/jobs)
- **Interview process**: Screened by technical team; stages include a 15-min screening, 45-min deep dive, 1-hour LLM-assisted coding assessment, and 2-hour on-site meet-and-greet. Aim to complete in about one week. [vast.ai/jobs](https://vast.ai/jobs)
- **Salary ranges**: For roles like Senior Infrastructure Engineer and GPU Systems Engineer, posted salary $120K–$180K (may vary by role). [vast.ai/jobs](https://vast.ai/jobs)
- **Engineering culture**: Reports directly to CEO/founder Jake Cannell, a prolific writer on AI and compute scaling theory. Emphasis on systems engineering, GPU optimization, and cutting-edge research.

## Sources
1. [vast.ai/about](https://vast.ai/about)
2. [vast.ai](https://vast.ai/)
3. [vast.ai/jobs](https://vast.ai/jobs)
4. [jobsbyculture.com](https://jobsbyculture.com/blog/working-at-vast-2026)
5. [vast.ai/jobs/apply/systems-gpu-research-engineer](https://vast.ai/jobs/apply/systems-gpu-research-engineer)

## Other roles at Vast.ai

- [Head of Sales](https://feeny.ai/job/head-of-sales-vast-ai-los-angeles-yrkth8v89kkh) — Los Angeles, CA
- [Developer Relations Engineer](https://feeny.ai/job/developer-relations-engineer-vast-ai-san-francisco-19dx882ce5x1) — San Francisco, CA
- [Controller](https://feeny.ai/job/controller-vast-ai-los-angeles-0d4jvgnj6v48) — Los Angeles, CA
- [AI, HPC & GPU Infrastructure Support Engineer](https://feeny.ai/job/ai-hpc-gpu-infrastructure-support-engineer-vast-ai-los-angeles-40e39w8ek9p1) — Los Angeles, CA
- [Systems Operations Support Engineer — Linux](https://feeny.ai/job/systems-operations-support-engineer-linux-vast-ai-los-angeles-v3hjj8k7jj4v) — Los Angeles, CA
- [Technical Product Manager, Infrastructure](https://feeny.ai/job/technical-product-manager-infrastructure-vast-ai-los-angeles-b0h8y0t8d4fy) — Los Angeles, CA
- [Technical Support Engineer II (Linux)](https://feeny.ai/job/technical-support-engineer-ii-linux-vast-ai-los-angeles-0h1q79ajj6kc) — Los Angeles, CA
- [Director of Engineering](https://feeny.ai/job/director-of-engineering-vast-ai-san-francisco-q3avgemppyhv) — San Francisco, CA
- [Senior Infrastructure Engineer](https://feeny.ai/job/senior-infrastructure-engineer-vast-ai-los-angeles-ejanf64s8d34) — Los Angeles, CA
- [GPU Systems Engineer – HPC / Parallel Computing](https://feeny.ai/job/gpu-systems-engineer-hpc-parallel-computing-vast-ai-san-francisco-e7dn3x08y2sq) — San Francisco, CA