Distinguished Engineer, AI Security Systems (Remote)

As a global leader in cybersecurity, CrowdStrike protects the people, processes and technologies that drive modern organizations. Since 2011, our mission hasn't changed. We're here to stop breaches, and we've redefined modern security with the world's most advanced AI-native platform. We work on large scale distributed systems, processing almost 3 trillion events per day.

About the Lab:

AI is changing cyber offense and defense simultaneously. The Lab is CrowdStrike's frontier AI research organization for cyber defense. Its work spans frontier and open-weight models, CrowdStrike-trained models, specialized agents, reinforcement learning, evaluation, and secure deployment.

About the Role:

We are seeking a Distinguished Engineer who has built AI and security systems that operate in the real world and stop real adversaries. You may have worked on the endpoint, or at cloud scale. As one of the Lab's most senior technical leaders, you will architect systems that turn frontier AI into autonomous, trustworthy cyber defense, from the sensor to the cloud. You will write code, design experiments, set technical direction across research and engineering teams, and carry breakthroughs into the Falcon platform.

What You'll Do:

• Architect the Lab's AI security systems end to end, including models, agents, security telemetry, tools, execution environments, on-sensor inference, and cloud-scale reasoning.
• Bring frontier AI to the endpoint using distillation, quantization, compact and specialized models, and integration with kernel- and user-mode telemetry.
• Build cloud-scale streaming detection and inference systems across trillions of events per day, with GPU-efficient serving, intelligent model routing, and disciplined control of cost, latency, and reliability.
• Build autonomous defenders that investigate, hunt, write and validate detections, and drive response and remediation.
• Create systems that learn from investigations, adversary emulation, simulations, expert feedback, reinforcement learning, post-training, reward modeling, and synthetic data.
• Engineer for adversarial conditions, including evasion, poisoning, prompt injection, tool abuse, sandboxed execution, and autonomous action in customer environments.
• Establish benchmarks, cyber ranges, and evaluation harnesses measuring efficacy, false-positive cost, reliability, latency, and spend.
• Lead through technical depth by working on the hardest problems, mentoring principal-level engineers and research scientists, and aligning cross-functional teams.
• Carry research into production in the Falcon platform, solving the scale, safety, and operability challenges required for customer-grade capabilities.
• Represent CrowdStrike through publications, open-source work, standards, and collaboration with frontier AI labs, universities, and the security research community.

What You'll Need:

• BS, MS, or PhD in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Applied Mathematics, or a related technical field; PhD preferred.
• 15+ years of industry experience in software engineering, machine learning, or security engineering; 12+ years with a PhD.
• 8+ years at a senior technical leadership level, such as Principal, Distinguished, or equivalent.
• A track record of architecting, building, and shipping production AI or ML systems for security, on the endpoint or at cloud scale.
• Hands-on expertise with large language models and agentic architectures, including planning, tool use, memory, context management, post-training, reward modeling, and inference optimization.
• Deep security expertise in areas such as detection and response, threat hunting, malware analysis, vulnerability research, adversary tradecraft, or security automation.
• Expert-level proficiency in one or more of C, C++, Rust, Go, or Python.
• Deep experience with distributed systems, high-throughput data infrastructure, and GPU inference stacks such as vLLM, TensorRT-LLM, Triton, or SGLang.
• Scientific rigor and the ability to form hypotheses, establish credible baselines, design meaningful experiments, and follow the evidence.
• A record of setting technical vision, raising the bar for senior engineers and researchers, and communicating complex tradeoffs clearly.
• Proven experience using AI technologies to improve decision-making, streamline workflows and processes, increase efficiency, and drive business outcomes.

Bonus Points:

• Cybersecurity industry experience across endpoint, cloud, identity, SIEM, or threat intelligence.
• Experience at a frontier AI lab in pre-training, post-training, reinforcement learning, inference, evaluation, or safety.
• Experience with adversarial machine learning, AI red teaming, autonomous cyber reasoning systems, or AI-driven offensive security.
• Experience building extensible AI or agentic platforms that enable teams to safely develop, evaluate, optimize, and deploy AI applications at scale.
• Recognized technical contributions, including publications, patents, influential open-source projects, or conference talks spanning AI and security.

Why Join the Lab:

• Work on frontier technology with real-world consequences, protecting organizations that keep economies, hospitals, and critical infrastructure running.
• Access trillions of daily Falcon events, deep adversary intelligence, and high-fidelity cyber environments.
• Help define the technical culture, architecture, and standards of a new frontier lab.
• Collaborate with AI researchers, offensive operators, threat hunters, and incident responders who understand how real attacks happen and how they are stopped.

Benefits of Working at CrowdStrike:

• Market leader in compensation and equity awards
• Comprehensive physical and mental wellness programs
• Competitive vacation and holidays for recharge
• Paid parental and adoption leaves
• Professional development opportunities for all employees regardless of level or role
• Employee Networks, geographic neighborhood groups, and volunteer opportunities to build connections
• Vibrant office culture with world class amenities
• Great Place to Work Certified across the globe

The base salary range for this position for all U.S. candidates is $235,000 - $350,000 per year, with eligibility for bonuses, equity grants and a comprehensive benefits package that includes health insurance, 401k and paid time off.