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, including Anduril, Canva, Fortinet, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, OpenAI, Snap Inc., and Snowflake. Chainguard is venture-backed by leading investors, including Amplify, IVP, Kleiner Perkins, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Mantis VC, Redpoint Ventures, Sequoia Capital, and Spark Capital.

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.

The role, in a nutshell

Chainguard prioritizes our customers’ security above all else, which means preparing not just for the attacks of today, but for those of tomorrow as well. 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 (and just enough healthy paranoia).

If you enjoy turning ambiguous, fast-moving threat intel into concrete, multi-quarter plans that change how a company operates, this is your playground.

What you’ll do:

• Research emerging threats & trends in software supply chain and product security, and analyze 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 (in systems, structures, and sometimes habits) and develop plans that fix root causes in ways that persist long after you’ve moved on to the next hard problem.
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