AI Security Engineer at Lakera

AI Security Focus

Engineers at Lakera build the core detection systems that identify prompt injection, jailbreak attempts, data exfiltration, and other adversarial inputs in real time. The work involves training and fine-tuning classifiers on adversarial input datasets, building low-latency inference pipelines that can process API requests without adding significant overhead, researching new attack techniques, and maintaining the detection accuracy as attackers adapt their methods.

Why AI Security Engineers Join Lakera

• Work at a company whose entire product is AI security, giving you the deepest possible specialization.
• Gandalf challenge data provides a unique dataset of real-world prompt injection attacks that no other company has.
• Remote-first with a global team, including strong European presence where EU AI Act creates tailwind.
• Early-stage equity in a company positioned at the center of the growing AI security market.

The AI Security Opportunity at Lakera

The AI security landscape is evolving rapidly, and Lakera sits at a particularly interesting position within it. The AI-in-cybersecurity market reached approximately $30.9 billion in 2025 and continues growing at 22% to 24% annually. Every company deploying AI systems needs security professionals who understand the unique threat surface that ML models create, from adversarial inputs and training data poisoning to model extraction and supply chain attacks.

At Lakera, the scale of AI deployment creates security challenges that most companies will not encounter for years. The threats you face and the defenses you build here become reference points for the broader industry. Engineers who develop expertise in this environment are positioned for leadership roles as AI security matures from a niche specialty into a standard function within every security organization.

The EU AI Act, with high-risk system requirements taking effect August 2026, adds a compliance dimension that makes this work even more critical. Companies with global operations need security engineers who can translate regulatory requirements into technical controls. Experience doing this at a company like Lakera is transferable to any organization deploying AI systems in regulated environments.

Technical Requirements

• Deep understanding of LLM security: prompt injection patterns, jailbreak techniques, data exfiltration vectors
• Experience building ML classifiers for adversarial content detection
• Strong Python skills with experience in ML frameworks (PyTorch, Hugging Face)
• Ability to build low-latency, high-throughput inference systems
• Understanding of NLP fundamentals: tokenization, embeddings, attention mechanisms

Interview Process

Lakera runs a focused interview process over two to three weeks. It includes a recruiter call, a technical deep-dive on AI security concepts and adversarial ML, a practical coding exercise involving detection system design, and a culture fit conversation with founders. The company looks for candidates who are genuinely passionate about AI security and can contribute to both research and engineering. Given the startup stage, breadth of skills matters as much as depth.

Compensation Details

Total cash compensation at Lakera ranges from $140,000 to $220,000, which is below frontier AI lab rates but competitive for a Series A/B startup. Equity grants are significant and represent the primary upside. Compensation may vary based on location within the global remote team. Benefits vary by country but typically include health coverage, flexible PTO, and learning stipends.

Career Development and Growth

AI security is early enough as a discipline that career paths are still being defined. At Lakera, common growth trajectories include advancing into senior and staff security engineer roles with increasing scope and strategic responsibility. Engineers who demonstrate both technical depth and leadership ability often move into team lead or management positions as AI security organizations scale.

Beyond the engineering ladder, AI security experience at Lakera opens paths into security architecture (designing AI security frameworks at the organizational level), product security leadership (owning the security posture of AI product lines), and advisory roles that shape how the industry approaches AI threats. The regulatory dimension, particularly the EU AI Act and NIST AI RMF, also creates opportunities for engineers who combine technical expertise with governance knowledge to move into CISO-track positions.

The experience you build here is transferable across the industry. Companies of all sizes are building AI security capabilities, and professionals with hands-on experience at a company operating at this scale are in high demand. Whether you stay long-term or use the experience as a career accelerator, the skills and credibility compound over time. Conference presentations, published research, and open-source contributions from your work here become career assets that follow you regardless of where you go next.

The AI security community is small enough that your reputation matters and large enough that there are meaningful career options. Building that reputation through work at Lakera gives you visibility with hiring managers, conference organizers, and investors across the AI security ecosystem. The professionals defining this field today will be the directors, VPs, and CISOs leading it in five years. Getting in now, at a company where the problems are real and the impact is measurable, is the best way to position yourself for that trajectory.