Threat Research Engineer, Security Factory: Threat Research

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An overview of this role

As a Threat Research Engineer, you’ll take ideas from the first question to a working proof of concept, deploy it, and analyze the results yourself. This is a full-stack role, with AI central to how we work. You’ll build agentic workflows for research, analysis, and detection, and use AI tools every day to move faster.

What you’ll do

• Research new attack surfaces and threat vectors, including AI coding agents, agent plugins, and package ecosystems.
• Find and responsibly disclose vulnerabilities in open source projects and developer tools.
• Analyze software supply chain incidents and events.
• Build AI-powered workflows and agents that automate research, analysis, and detection.
• Build and maintain the cloud-based systems behind our detection and advisory work.
• Improve the quality and coverage of our vulnerability and malware advisories.
• Write up your findings as blog posts and present them at conferences.
• Take part in on-call or operational support where your team's ownership model requires it.

What you’ll bring

• Hands-on security experience in research, malware analysis, penetration testing, or security tooling, with both a developer mindset and an adversarial mindset: you can build systems and think about how to break them.
• Demonstrated experience using AI in real work, such as building with large language model APIs or agent frameworks like LangChain, LangGraph, or agent SDKs.
• Strong programming skills in Go or Python, with good software engineering practices including testing, code review, continuous integration and continuous delivery, and maintainable code.
• Experience deploying and running production services on a public cloud.
• Understanding of how package ecosystems work and how software supply chain attacks happen.
• Ability to map possible attack vectors, name trade-offs, and make data-driven decisions, balancing quality and speed with customer outcomes in mind while keeping up with security and AI industry trends.
• Clear writing that explains findings to both engineers and a general audience.
• Helpful, but not required: published vulnerability findings; security research on AI agents, large language model applications, or Model Context Protocol (MCP) servers; Google Cloud Platform experience; or infrastructure as code experience with Terraform or OpenTofu.

You don’t need deep knowledge of compilers or static application security testing engines. A high-level understanding is enough.

About the team

The Threat Research group researches security threats as they emerge and turns what we learn into protection for GitLab customers. We maintain the GitLab Advisory Database, which powers GitLab’s dependency scanning. We also build detection capabilities, do original vulnerability research, and publish what we find. Recent work includes the Shai-Hulud npm worm and a critical remote code execution vulnerability in Serena, a popular MCP coding agent. You can read more on the Security Labs blog.

The base salary range for this role’s listed level is currently for residents of the EU, applicable in the specified country or countries only. Sales roles are also eligible for incentive pay targeted at up to 100% of the offered base salary. Grade level and salary ranges are determined through interviews and a review of education, experience, knowledge, skills, abilities of the applicant, equity with other team members, alignment with market data, and geographic location and having regard to any applicable collective agreements. The base salary range does not include bonuses, equity, or benefits.

Poland base salary range: 272,000 - 408,000 PLN

How GitLab Supports Full-Time Employees

• Benefits to support your health, finances, and well-being
• Flexible Paid Time Off
• Team Member Resource Groups
• Equity Compensation & Employee Stock Purchase Plan
• Growth and Development Fund
• Parental Leave

Please note that we welcome interest from candidates with varying levels of experience; many successful candidates do not meet every single requirement. Additionally, studies have shown that people from underrepresented groups are less likely to apply to a job unless they meet every single qualification. If you're excited about this role, please apply and allow our recruiters to assess your application.

Country Hiring Guidelines: GitLab hires new team members in countries around the world. All of our roles are remote, however some roles may carry specific location-based eligibility requirements. Our Talent Acquisition team can help answer any questions about location after starting the recruiting process.

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GitLab is proud to be an equal opportunity workplace and is an affirmative action employer. GitLab’s policies and practices relating to recruitment, employment, career development and advancement, promotion, and retirement are based solely on merit, regardless of race, color, religion, ancestry, sex (including pregnancy, lactation, sexual orientation, gender identity, or gender expression), national origin, age, citizenship, marital status, mental or physical disability, genetic information (including family medical history), discharge status from the military, protected veteran status (which includes disabled veterans, recently separated veterans, active duty wartime or campaign badge veterans, and Armed Forces service medal veterans), or any other basis protected by law. GitLab will not tolerate discrimination or harassment based on any of these characteristics. See also GitLab’s EEO Policy and EEO is the Law. If you have a disability or special need that requires accommodation, please let us know during the recruiting process.