Senior Manager, AI Safety and Security Engineering

NVIDIA is hiring a Senior Manager, AI Safety and Security Engineering in Santa Clara, United States. It pays $272k-$431k a year and Level rates it ; you can apply on Level.

AI in this role

Lead and build a founding engineering team focused on creating AI-powered security tooling and safety evaluations for open-weight models.

ml-infrastructuresecurity-tooling

ai-safetysoftware-engineeringengineering-managementsecurity-research

NVIDIA is widely recognized as one of the most sought-after employers, with some of the most dedicated people in the world working for us! We believe open-weight models are foundational to American AI leadership and cybersecurity and that trust in AI grows through participation, transparency, and broad scientific scrutiny—not a single point of control. Our AI Safety & Security Engineering team builds and evaluates AI-powered tooling that helps find, validate, and patch software vulnerabilities.

We are looking for a Senior Manager to build and lead this team from its very first engineers. You will hire across harness and platform engineering, security research, and evaluation and help these disciplines work as one group at a sustainable pace. You will own delivery of the Find, Validate, and Patch roadmap, make trade-offs visible rather than silent, and share progress in plain language. We value careful engineering over hype: results earn trust through internal review, not bold claims. When you apply, tell us about a team you built or a system you shipped—specific, checkable detail helps us see the person behind the resume.

What You'll Be Doing:

Team building: Hire, coach, and grow the founding engineering team.
Delivery: Lead the Find, Validate, and Patch engineering roadmap.
Partnership: Collaborate with evaluation, security, and platform leadership.
Communication: Share clear, honest engineering status across NVIDIA.

What We Need To See:

Bachelor's degree (or equivalent experience) with 12+ years in software engineering, including 5+ years of experience managing engineering teams.
Leadership: Experience guiding teams that build complex systems - distributed infrastructure, ML platforms, or security tooling.
Technical depth: Ability to weigh architecture and evaluation trade-offs in ML or systems software.
Ambiguity: Steadiness in a young program, where much is still yours to define.

Ways to Stand Out from the Crowd:

Security background: Exposure to vulnerability research or security programs.
ML systems: Experience with teams building ML infrastructure or agents.
Founding experience: Growing new teams from their earliest stage.

With competitive salaries and a generous benefits package, NVIDIA is widely considered to be one of the technology industry's most desirable employers. We have some of the most forward-thinking and versatile people in the world working with us, and our engineering teams are growing fast in some of the most impactful fields of our generation: Confidential Computing and Data. If you're a creative engineer who enjoys autonomy and shares our passion for technology, we want to hear from you.

Your base salary will be determined based on your location, experience, and the pay of employees in similar positions. The base salary range is 272,000 USD - 431,250 USD.

You will also be eligible for equity and benefits.

Applications for this job will be accepted at least until October 6, 2026.

This posting is for an existing vacancy.

NVIDIA uses AI tools in its recruiting processes.

NVIDIA is committed to fostering an inclusive work environment and proud to be an equal opportunity employer. As we highly value diversity in our current and future employees, we do not discriminate (including in our hiring and promotion practices) on the basis of race, religion, color, national origin, gender, gender expression, sexual orientation, age, marital status, veteran status, disability status or any other characteristic protected by law.

How we rate this

Senior Manager, AI Safety and Security Engineering at NVIDIA rates 85 out of 100 for how much of the daily work is AI. That makes it Builds AI (AI Level 4 of 4). The level is about AI in the job, not seniority.

Classification

Builds AI. The job is building AI systems.

●●●● Builds AI80 to 100
●●●○ Works on AI60 to 79
●●○○ Uses AI40 to 59
●○○○ Little AI0 to 39

Levels come from how often the tools, models and workflows of the role are named in the posting itself. Open the description and count.

Key facts

Senior Manager, AI Safety and Security Engineering is an open job at NVIDIA.
Level rates this role AI Level 4 of 4: Builds AI.
The listed salary is $272k-$431k a year.
The role is based in US, CA, Santa Clara.
The job was posted on October 2, 2026.
Seniority: senior.
Applications are handled by NVIDIA. Apply on NVIDIA

Prepare for this job

A free preview built only from this posting: what it asks for, what you could be asked in an interview, and how to adjust your resume.

Skills and AI tools this role asks for

AI SafetySoftware EngineeringEngineering ManagementSecurity ResearchML InfrastructureSecurity Tooling

Questions you could be asked

How do you think about the risk of an AI system in this kind of role failing silently?
Tell me about a project where software engineering was part of your work. What did you do?
Tell me about a project where engineering management was part of your work. What did you do?
Tell me about a project where security research was part of your work. What did you do?
Walk me through how you've used ML Infrastructure in your day-to-day work.

Adapt your resume

List these exact terms on your resume: AI Safety, Software Engineering, Engineering Management, Security Research, and ML Infrastructure. An applicant tracking system matches the wording, not the idea.
Attach one line of real, concrete experience to at least one of them. A tool named with nothing behind it rarely survives a human read.
Lead with what you built, trained or shipped. This role is judged on the AI system itself, not the tools around it.

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