Sr. Staff Application Security Engineer

$254,000 - $407,000/Yr

Aurora Innovation - Mountain View, CA

Full-time - Mid Level

Mountain View, CA

Professional, Scientific, and Technical Services

About the position

Aurora is seeking an experienced Security Engineer to join our Product Security team, which is dedicated to discovering, mitigating, and preventing security risks in the software, hardware, and services developed by Aurora. The mission of our team is to ensure the secure design and implementation of technology for the Aurora Driver, while continually improving the assurance levels of security across all of Aurora's products. This role involves performing technical security assessments, threat modeling, security code reviews, and vulnerability testing to highlight risks and assist various engineering teams and partners in enhancing security. The Security Engineer will work closely with engineers across Aurora and third-party partners to proactively integrate initiatives that enhance security across a wide variety of software and hardware domains and technology stacks. In this role, you will be responsible for conducting secure design reviews and threat modeling, identifying and prioritizing risks, attack surfaces, and vulnerabilities. You will perform security code reviews of source code changes, advising developers on remediating vulnerabilities and adhering to secure coding practices. Additionally, you will manage the vulnerability management process, which includes triage, prioritization, tracking, remediation, and validation of vulnerabilities from audits, scans, and external reports. You will employ techniques such as reverse engineering, fuzzing, and static and/or dynamic analysis to uncover vulnerabilities and design secure protocols and systems. The Security Engineer will also be tasked with developing and managing a secure software development lifecycle and a bug bounty program. You will research, recommend, and develop security tools and technologies to strengthen defenses against emerging threats and vulnerabilities. Collaboration with engineering teams and OEMs will be essential to ensure successful security assurance of the Aurora Driver platform and services. Furthermore, you will advocate for and mentor both security and non-security engineers to instill security best practices through secure architecture, design, and development.

Responsibilities

• Perform secure design reviews and threat modeling.
• Identify and prioritize risks, attack surfaces, and vulnerabilities.
• Perform security code reviews of source code changes and advise developers on remediating vulnerabilities and following secure coding practices.
• Perform technical security assessments and reviews, research, uncover, and reproduce vulnerabilities, design secure protocols and systems, and write tests and fuzzers to drive architecture changes.
• Manage the vulnerability management process and program through triage, prioritization, tracking, remediation, and validation of vulnerabilities from audits, scans, and external reports.
• Employ techniques including reverse engineering, fuzzing, and static and/or dynamic analysis.
• Conduct research to identify new and novel attack vectors against Aurora's products and services.
• Review, develop and document secure operational best practices, and provide security guidance for engineers and various internal and external partners.
• Develop and manage a secure software development lifecycle.
• Develop and manage a bug bounty program.
• Research, recommend, and develop security tools and technologies to strengthen defenses against emerging threats and vulnerabilities.
• Work with Engineering teams and OEMs to ensure successful security assurance of the Aurora Driver platform and services.
• Advocate, guide and mentor both security and non-security engineers to instill security best practices through secure architecture, design, and development.

Requirements

• Foundational knowledge of operating system security for Linux.
• Foundational knowledge of the CWE Top 25.
• Ability to assess software and/or hardware components with and without full knowledge.
• Ability to work well with other assessment members and engineering partners.
• Ability to communicate effectively with technical and non-technical audiences.
• Experience in one or more of the following: risk assessment, threat modeling, incident and emergency response, OS hardening, vulnerability management, pentesting, offensive security or cryptographic protocols and concepts.
• Experience in vulnerability discovery and analysis, design review, and code-level security reviews.
• Experience in, and technical knowledge of security engineering, computer and network security, authentication and security protocols, and applied cryptography.
• Experience with assessment, development, implementation, and documentation of a comprehensive and broad set of security technologies and processes.
• Familiarity with automotive protocols and security standards.
• Experience in Security Assurance / Secure-SDLC processes in an agile / waterfall environment.
• Experience building and evaluating threat models / risk assessments.
• Experience and ability to implement best practices related to cryptographic protocols, infrastructure and network security.
• Minimum 8 years of experience in a security-specific or security-adjacent industry.
• Minimum 2 years of experience in the robotics or automotive industry or equivalent.

Nice-to-haves

• Relevant work experience in offensive security, penetration testing or red teaming.
• Experience implementing various Defense in Depth Strategies to address dynamic threats across various software and hardware stacks.
• Ability and desire to write production-quality code in C++, Golang, or Python.
• Experience evaluating the security of software, hardware and services.
• Foundational knowledge of embedded firmware security and hardware security, preferably in the robotics or automotive space.
• Familiarity with cloud security (AWS) and infrastructure-as-code.
• Familiarity with Trusted Platform Modules, HSMs, and trusted boot.
• A history of giving back to the security industry via open source contributions, published papers, or conference presentations.

Benefits

• Annual bonus eligibility
• Equity compensation
• Comprehensive health benefits
• Flexible work arrangements
• Professional development opportunities