--- title: 'Staff Software Engineer, Tripwires at Horizon3 AI' canonical: 'https://feeny.ai/job/staff-software-engineer-tripwires-horizon3-ai-united-states-0s3vbvz1erae' type: 'job' last_seen: '2026-11-07' --- # Staff Software Engineer, Tripwires at Horizon3 AI - **Company:** [Horizon3 AI](https://feeny.ai/companies/horizon3-ai) - **Location:** United States - **Employment:** full-time - **Work type:** remote - **Posted:** 2026-07-28 - **Last confirmed live:** 2026-11-07 - **Apply:** https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/horizon3ai/95044547-e65e-494f-b04c-ea1853ac1369 ## Job description Get to Know Us [Horizon3.ai](http://Horizon3.ai) is an innovative, rapidly growing cybersecurity company on a mission to help organizations proactively identify, fix, and verify exploitable vulnerabilities before they can be leveraged by cybercriminals. Our flagship product, NodeZero™, delivers autonomous pentests and security assessments that scale across complex environments, including internal, external, cloud, and hybrid cloud infrastructures. From small educational institutions to global enterprises, our platform is trusted by a wide range of organizations—IT and SecOps teams, MSSPs, MSPs, and consulting pentesters. Our team blends former U.S. Special Operations cyber operators, startup engineers, and seasoned cybersecurity professionals. Together, we’re tackling the industry's toughest challenges: ineffective tools, false positives, alert fatigue, skills shortages, and the high costs and long timelines associated with traditional consulting. We are a culture of learn-it-alls—focused on collaboration, respect, ownership, and delivering results. As a fully remote company, we prioritize flexibility and require a minimum 25Mbps broadband connection. The Opportunity We are looking for a Staff Software Engineer to join our Detection & Deception (DnD) Team to help build Horizon3’s deception capabilities. The team works across product, design, and engineering to deliver features such as Tripwires and Rapid Response. This role will focus initially on evolving Tripwires — a threat detection and deception capability within the NodeZero platform that uses autonomous pentests to place decoys (honeytokens) along high-risk attack paths. When an attacker interacts with a tripwire, the system generates an alert so defenders can investigate and respond. It's a great fit for someone who thrives in an agile, fast-paced environment and is excited to ship high-quality work that has a real impact on the cybersecurity landscape. ## What You’ll Do As a Staff Software Engineer on the Tripwires team, you'll combine deep security domain expertise with hands-on full-stack development to design, prototype, and ship new security capabilities within NodeZero. You'll partner with product managers and designers to identify high-impact opportunities, and work alongside product engineers to quickly turn those ideas into MVPs and production features. Day-to-day work spans product research, threat-informed design, and feature development — with a particular focus on honeytoken and honeypot creation, deployment, and detection logic for Tripwires and adjacent products like Rapid Response. By building these capabilities, you'll deepen customer engagement with our platform and deliver novel solutions that measurably improve their security posture. ## What You’ll Bring - Technical Leadership: Owns the end-to-end technical vision for the workstream and rallies the team around it — from blank doc through shipping, iterating, and deprecating. - Software Engineering: Production code contributions at Lead/Staff level in a modern backend language (Go, Rust, Python, or similar) in a service-oriented environment. - Self-Motivation: The ability to work independently with minimal supervision, demonstrating initiative and a high level of energy. - Collaboration: Work closely with other cross-functional partners to build and improve our product portfolio - Communication: Strong technical writing and documentation skills, with the ability to convey findings and methodologies to both technical and non-technical stakeholders. - Technical Design: Proficiency in designing, presenting, and evaluating technical solutions, ensuring high-quality software and secure development practices. - Team Leadership: - Sets and raises the technical bar (design reviews, code quality, operational discipline) by example rather than by mandate. - Mentors and enhances the engineers around them; Build the frameworks and architecture for others to do the best work of their careers. - Holds the team accountable to outcomes rather than activity; surfaces risks and tradeoffs early and in writing. - Product-Minded Technical Leadership: - Translates ambiguous product goals into concrete technical roadmaps. - Partners closely with PM — comfortable in PRD reviews, not just sprint planning. - Sequences an MVP without painting the team into a corner. Required Qualifications - Python: Expert-level proficiency in large-scale Python software development. - Network Security: Deep experience with network security topics such as reconnaissance and lateral movement. - Windows Experience: Proficiency with Active Directory, Windows authentication, and other windows internals - Network Protocols: Strong understanding of network protocols such as SMB and WMI and their intricacies, including their role in exploitation vectors. - Database Experience: Experience with relational (Postgres) or graph (Neo4j) database systems. - Security Experience: Minimum of 4 years of experience in building offensive or defensive security solutions, ideally in endpoint, threat detection, or low-level systems. - Education: Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science, Computer Engineering or related field. Equivalent experience may be considered if demonstrable through proof-of-concept write-ups, published vulnerability research, or similar achievements. ## Preferred Qualifications - OSCP (Offensive Security Certified Professional), GCWN (GIAC Certified Windows Security Administrator) or equivalent certifications. - Previous experience working on large-scale software projects. - Experience administering, attacking, or defending cloud environments. - Knowledge of and experience with Docker and containerization technologies. - Familiarity with identity and directory services such as Active Directory, Entra ID, or Okta. - Familiarity with cloud authentication and authorization technologies such as Azure Service Principals or AWS IAM. Travel Required: We are a fully remote company, and this job may require up to 5% of travel to be successful. Compensation and Values: At Horizon3, we believe that our people are our greatest asset, and our compensation philosophy reflects this core value. We are committed to fostering an environment where all employees feel valued, respected, and rewarded for their contributions. Our compensation structure is designed to be fair, competitive, and transparent, ensuring that every team member is recognized and compensated equitably across roles, levels, and locations. In accordance with various State’s transparency regulations, we provide the following salary range information for this position: - Base salary range: $229,000 - $270,000 annually. The exact salary will be determined based on the selected candidate’s location, qualifications, experience, and relevant skills. - Additional compensation: This role may also be eligible for an equity package (in the form of stock options). If any other compensation benefits apply, they will be discussed during the interview process. Perks of [Horizon3.ai](http://Horizon3.ai): - Inclusive Team: We value diversity and promote an inclusive culture where everyone can thrive. - Growth Opportunities: Be part of a dynamic and growing team with numerous career development opportunities. - Innovative Culture: Work in a collaborative environment that encourages creativity and out-of-the-box thinking. - Remote Work: We are a 100% remote company. Enjoy the flexibility to work in the way that supports you and brings out your best. - Competitive Compensation: We offer competitive salary and benefits which includes health, vision & dental care for you and your family, a flexible vacation policy, and generous parental leave. You Belong Here: Horizon3 is not just an equal opportunity employer - we are a community that values diversity, equity, and inclusion as fundamental principles of our culture and success. We are dedicated to fostering a workplace where everyone feels welcome and respected, regardless of race, color, religion, sex, national origin, age, disability, veteran status, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, genetic information, marital status, hair length or any other legally protected status by law. Our commitment to diversity and inclusion means we strive to attract, develop, and retain a workforce that reflects the varied communities we serve. We believe that diverse perspectives drive innovation and strengthen our ability to create cutting-edge cybersecurity solutions. At Horizon3, every team member is valued and supported in an environment that encourages personal and professional growth. We welcome candidates from all backgrounds and experiences, and we encourage all qualified individuals to apply. Come be a part of Horizon3, where your unique contributions are recognized, and your potential is limitless. Other Duties: Please note this job description is not designed to cover or contain a comprehensive listing of activities, duties or responsibilities that are required of the employee. Duties, responsibilities, and activities may change at any time with or without notice. Application Note: In any materials you submit, you may redact or remove age-identifying information such as age, date of birth, or dates of school attendance or graduation. You will not be penalized for redacting or removing this information. ## About Horizon3 AI ## Company Overview - **One-liner**: Horizon3.ai provides an autonomous penetration testing platform (NodeZero) that safely hacks production environments to identify and fix exploitable attack paths using AI. - **Entity Type**: Private (Series D – latest funding round in 2026, led by Prosperity7 Ventures) - **Headquarters**: San Francisco, California, United States (447 Battery Street, San Francisco, CA 94111) - **Founded**: 2019 - **Founders**: Snehal Antani (Co-Founder & CEO); founded by a mix of US Special Operations, US National Security, and cybersecurity industry veterans ## Core Business - **Primary industry**: Cybersecurity (autonomous penetration testing, vulnerability management, continuous security validation) - **Target customers**: B2B – large enterprises, Fortune 100, government agencies (NSA, CISA), healthcare providers, financial services, manufacturing, education, public sector - **Mission**: “Turn the map around” – using the attacker’s perspective to help enterprises prioritize defensive efforts. The company aims to shift the advantage from attackers to defenders by fighting AI with AI. ## Products & Services - **[NodeZero®](https://horizon3.ai/)**: Autonomous penetration testing SaaS platform. Safely runs real attack techniques in production environments (no agents, no disruption). Discovers and chains exploitable vulnerabilities, misconfigurations, harvested credentials, and dangerous defaults across external, identity, on-prem, cloud, and Kubernetes attack surfaces. Also includes Active Directory password auditing and phishing impact testing. Continuously validates fixes and repeats autonomously. ## Market Standing - **Valuation**: Not publicly disclosed - **Key Metrics**: - Annual Revenue: **$35.5M** (per LinkedIn) - Total Funding: **$187M** (per LinkedIn) / **$181M** (per CB Insights – conflicting reports; both cited) - **225,000+** production-safe tests completed - **5,000+** customers - **Notable Investors/Partners**: - SignalFire (lead in Seed, Series A, Series B) - Craft Ventures (lead Series C) - Prosperity7 Ventures (lead Series D – 2026) - **Growth Signals**: - Ranked **#1 in Security** on the 2025 Inc. 5000 list - **#3 overall** on the 2025 Deloitte Technology Fast 500 - Fast Company’s **Most Innovative Companies** (2026) – #1 in Security - Named to the **Fortune Cyber 60** (2023 & 2025) - Two-time **Black Unicorn Award** winner - Headcount grew **115.5% YoY** to 341 employees (LinkedIn) - Active job postings up **168.2% YoY**; operates in 14 countries ## Competitive Advantages - **AI-driven autonomous testing** that learns from hundreds of thousands of tests and uses the right AI (ML, GenAI) for each problem – delivers evidence-based results with **zero hallucinations**. - **Production-safe** – zero downtime across all production tests, trusted by the world’s most sensitive high-security environments (NSA, CISA, Fortune 10, major healthcare). - **No agents required** – fully self-service SaaS, safe to run continuously. - **Real attack techniques** – not a scanner; shows actual attacker paths and impact. - **Rapid verification** – instantly confirms fixes and repeats the cycle, enabling a continuous validation loop. ## Strategic Focus - **Continuous validation** – driving a loop of test-fix-verify-repeat autonomously. - **Fighting AI with AI** – building NodeZero to operate at machine speed against AI-powered attacks. - **Global expansion** – already in 14 countries, with active hiring in EMEA, APAC, and the Americas. - **Scaling the team** – 59 active job postings (as of mid-2026), with emphasis on engineering, sales, and customer success roles. ## Why Work Here - **Culture**: Rated **5.0/5.0 on LinkedIn** (76 reviews) with perfect scores for Culture (5.0), Career (4.9), Compensation (4.7), and Work-Life (4.6). Described as a “kick-ass organization hell bent on disrupting an industry” with a team of “motivated learn-it-alls.” - **Work Policy**: Remote-friendly (most roles listed as remote, HQ in San Francisco, CA). Offers flexibility across time zones. - **Notable Perks** (from Built In and LinkedIn): - Comprehensive healthcare (medical, dental, vision, FSA) - Life insurance, disability insurance - 401(k) with company matching - Equity and employee stock purchase plan - Generous parental leave and family medical leave - Performance bonuses - Job training, conferences, and customized development tracks - Promotion policies and career growth support - **Engineering Culture**: Built by US Special Operations and National Security veterans. Emphasis on high autonomy, real-world impact, and cutting-edge AI/security work. “If you want to be part of a kick-ass organization hell bent on disrupting an industry and keeping attackers at bay, let’s talk.” ## Sources 1. [horizon3.ai – Homepage](https://horizon3.ai/) 2. [horizon3.ai – About/Team](https://horizon3.ai/about-us/) 3. [LinkedIn – Horizon3.ai Company Page](https://www.linkedin.com/company/horizon3ai) 4. [Built In – Horizon3.ai Careers & Perks](https://builtin.com/company/horizon3ai) 5. [CB Insights – Horizon3.ai Profile](https://www.cbinsights.com/company/horizon-3-ai) ## Other roles at Horizon3 AI - [Director of Engineering, Threat Research](https://feeny.ai/job/director-of-engineering-threat-research-horizon3-ai-united-states-0fsq2qg04cee) — United States - [Senior Attack Engineer, GCP](https://feeny.ai/job/senior-attack-engineer-gcp-horizon3-ai-united-states-p7dypj66skxv) — United States - [Senior Attack Engineer, Kubernetes](https://feeny.ai/job/senior-attack-engineer-kubernetes-horizon3-ai-united-states-8bbsrmqpg924) — United States - [Senior Attack Engineer, OCI](https://feeny.ai/job/senior-attack-engineer-oci-horizon3-ai-united-states-06y0k0t6a5p9) — United States - [Staff Backend Engineer, Internal](https://feeny.ai/job/staff-backend-engineer-internal-horizon3-ai-united-states-eccvzb53mpb7) — United States - [Senior Sales Engineer (SLED)](https://feeny.ai/job/senior-sales-engineer-sled-horizon3-ai-united-states-agqan5xzy6d6) — United States - [Research Staff, Adversarial Intelligence](https://feeny.ai/job/research-staff-adversarial-intelligence-horizon3-ai-united-states-xxx9ghesv6ha) — United States - [Engineering Manager, Internal Attack](https://feeny.ai/job/engineering-manager-internal-attack-horizon3-ai-united-states-tx9j8q1pkfsx) — United States - [Senior Account Executive, SLED - New York](https://feeny.ai/job/senior-account-executive-sled-new-york-horizon3-ai-new-york-2d49m7hyp482) — New York, NY - [Senior Account Executive, SLED - Texas](https://feeny.ai/job/senior-account-executive-sled-texas-horizon3-ai-united-states-nkhqvten2p1s) — United States