Staff Software Engineer, Cryptography R&D

Location: United Kingdom

Employment Type: Full time

Department: Cybersecurity

Compensation: At SandboxAQ, we are committed to competitive, equitable, and transparent compensation; we continuously benchmark our salaries and total compensation to premium markets to ensure our competitiveness. Individual pay within the above range is determined by job-related skills, experience, education, and geographic location. With a focus on pay equity and ensuring opportunity for future salary progression, our typical practice is to hire within the first half of the base salary range for a given role and level. This approach allows us to reward performance and increasing expertise consistently as your career develops with us.

About SandboxAQ: SandboxAQ is a high-growth company delivering AI solutions that address some of the world's greatest challenges. The company’s Large Quantitative Models (LQMs) power advances in life sciences, financial services, navigation, cybersecurity, and other sectors. We are a global team that is tech-focused and includes experts in AI, chemistry, cybersecurity, physics, mathematics, medicine, engineering, and other specialties. The company emerged from Alphabet Inc. as an independent, growth capital-backed company in 2022, funded by leading investors and supported by a braintrust of industry leaders. At SandboxAQ, we’ve cultivated an environment that encourages creativity, collaboration, and impact. By investing deeply in our people, we’re building a thriving, global workforce poised to tackle the world's epic challenges. Join us to advance your career in pursuit of an inspiring mission, in a community of like-minded people who value entrepreneurialism, ownership, and transformative impact.

The Opportunity: You will be a key player on a team of diverse experts, developing new features and tackling a wide array of challenges across our technology stack. Your responsibilities will involve a variety of complex technical domains, including systems-level programming, large-scale data analysis, and security automation. We are looking for a versatile engineer with deep cryptographic expertise and the ability to solve complex, systems-level problems across a variety of programming languages.

Key Responsibilities:

• Collaborate with R&D and Product stakeholders to prototype new capabilities and explore future features.
• Apply strong systems engineering skills to design and build proof-of-concept solutions for complex security challenges.
• Design and implement systems for managing and analyzing large-scale, security-related data.
• Write high-quality, reusable code for R&D projects across a variety of languages, such as Rust, Go, or Python.
• Conduct technical investigations and present findings that will help shape the company's strategic direction.
• Own greenfield projects from the initial design phase through to a working prototype.

5+ years of industry experience building, deploying, and maintaining complex software projects and data pipelines. Demonstrated mastery across multiple languages, with required expertise in a systems language (e.g., Rust, C++, Zig) and fluency in higher-level languages (e.g., Python, Golang, Kotlin). Deep engineering knowledge of symmetric and asymmetric cryptography, cryptographic protocols, and their real-world application. Proven ability to apply academic foundations to real-world engineering challenges. Strong analytical thinking and communication skills, with an ability to thrive in a collaborative, fast-paced environment.

Highly Desired Skills & Experience:

• A PhD or MSc in Cryptography, Computer Science, or Mathematics is highly preferred.
• Valuable experience in computer security, with enthusiasm to deepen your expertise in cryptography and Public Key Infrastructure.
• A demonstrated passion for security and cryptography, such as through contributions to open-source projects.
• Experience with static or dynamic program analysis, or developing software sensors and tracers.
• Familiarity with our broader tech stack (e.g., Typescript, React, GraphQL, Flask, PostgreSQL, Bazel, Docker, GCP, AWS).

Why Join Us?

• We offer a comprehensive and competitive benefits package designed to support your health, financial well-being, and life outside of work.
• Compensation: Competitive base salary, performance-based incentives or bonuses (where applicable), and equity participation.
• Benefits: Comprehensive medical, dental, and vision coverage for employees and dependents with generous employer premium contributions, retirement savings with company matching, paid parental leave, and inclusive family-building benefits.
• Work-Life Balance: Flexible paid time off, company-wide seasonal breaks, and support for flexible work arrangements that enable sustainable performance.
• Career Development: Opportunities for continuous learning and growth through on-the-job development, cross-functional collaboration, and access to internal learning and development programs.

SandboxAQ Welcomes All: We are committed to fostering a culture of belonging and respect, where diverse perspectives are actively sought and valued. Our multidisciplinary environment provides ample opportunity for continuous growth - working alongside humble, empowered, and ambitious colleagues ready to tackle epic challenges.

Equal Employment Opportunity: All qualified applicants will receive consideration regardless of race, color, ancestry, religion, sex, national origin, sexual orientation, age, citizenship, marital status, disability, gender identity, or Veteran status.

Accommodations: We provide reasonable accommodations for individuals with disabilities in job application procedures for open roles. If you need such an accommodation, please let a member of our Recruiting team know.