Principal Product Security Researcher

Chainguard is the trusted source for open source. By delivering hardened, secure, and production-ready builds of all the open source software engineers and AI agents rely on, Chainguard helps organizations build faster, stay compliant, and eliminate risk. Our customers include Fortune 500 enterprises and global industry leaders.

Imagine a world where we’re not just reacting to the latest security headline, but quietly shaping the future threat landscape so our customers sleep better at night (and so do we).

As a Principal Product Security Researcher at Chainguard, you’ll lead our product security research function end-to-end: mapping emerging threats, turning insight into strategy, and helping Chainguard stay several moves ahead of attackers across our entire product portfolio.

In this principal-level role, you’ll:

• Own the product security research agenda for Chainguard scanning the broader ecosystem, identifying emerging attack patterns, and translating them into clear risks and opportunities for Chainguard and our customers.
• Shape security direction across products and platforms, partnering closely with Product, Engineering, and Security leadership to embed your findings into roadmaps, architecture decisions, and long-term plans.
• Operate as someone who sees the whole ecosystem, spots issues early, and helps others navigate with confidence.
• Research emerging threats & trends in software supply chain and product security, and analyse their impact on Chainguard’s products and customers.
• Design creative mitigations across people, process, and technology not just proof-of-concept demos, but pragmatic defenses that actually get adopted.
• Lead large-scale, multi-quarter initiatives that materially reduce risk or improve our security maturity across multiple product lines and platforms.
• Partner with executive and senior engineering leadership to drive org-level security strategy, influence key roadmap decisions, and secure buy-in for big, complex changes.
• Identify systematic weaknesses and develop plans that fix root causes in ways that persist long after you’ve moved on to the next hard problem.
• Mentor and uplevel others across Product Security and Engineering by helping teams think more strategically about threats, risk, and long-term security posture.
• Represent Chainguard externally through talks, conferences, and thought leadership, sharing what we’re learning and helping move the industry forward.

You Might Be a Great Fit If You:

• Bring deep experience in product or application security, with a track record of leading research or threat-focused work that drove clear, company-level outcomes.
• Have expert knowledge across multiple domains such as secure architecture, application/product security, software supply chain, and org-level risk management.
• Are comfortable owning ambiguous, cross-functional problems and turning them into structured, prioritized initiatives that ship and stick.
• Have a proven ability to present complex ideas to executive stakeholders, gaining alignment and driving decision-making at the highest levels.
• Stay at the cutting edge of industry trends, tooling, and research methods.
• Work independently and with high ownership, while still being a generous collaborator.
• Are comfortable in fast-evolving, uncertain contexts and can build structure.

We live and breathe our company values:

• We are customer obsessed — We focus on delivering solutions to our customers that create value and make their lives better.
• We have a bias for intentional action — We prioritize, plan, try things, and fail fast.
• We don’t take ourselves too seriously (but we do serious work) — We are solving an important problem which takes focus, but we also like to enjoy the journey.
• We trust each other and assume good intentions — We’re transparent with decisions to empower team members to make well informed decisions.

A Few Of The Benefits We Offer:

• Flexible & Remote-First Culture: Work remotely with team meetup opportunities, bi-annual destination summits, and a monthly stipend for coworking spaces, phone and internet costs.
• Our Approach to Equity: Receive stock options upon hire and promotion.
• 100% Covered Health Insurance: We cover 100% of your health, vision and dental insurance premiums for you and your dependents.
• ∞ Flexible Time Off: Take the time you need – to do our best work, we need to recharge and reset.
• 18 Weeks Paid Parental Leave: We offer 18 weeks for birthing parents and 12 weeks for non-birthing parents.

Chainguard is an equal opportunity employer. We do not discriminate based upon race, religion, colour, national origin, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, age, status as a protected veteran, status as an individual with a disability, genetic information, political views or activity, or other applicable legally protected characteristics.