Skip to content

Security Engineering

Security Engineer, Application

Serval logoServal$200,000–$325,000/yrSan FranciscoFull-timePosted 4mo ago

At its midpoint, $263k/yr, this role pays more than the $212k/yr midpoint for Security Engineering openings today (usual band $175k–$375k/yr).

The full posting

Who We Are

Serval is the AI-native enterprise service management platform that automates the work legacy IT service management tools only track. Our AI agents build the automations that power employee support, then resolve requests against them instantly - helping teams across IT, HR, finance, legal, and beyond automate work within one governed platform.

Companies including Fox, Live Nation, Notion, Ramp, and Lucid Motors run on Serval. Headquartered in San Francisco, we’ve raised $277 million from investors including Sequoia Capital, Redpoint Ventures, First Round, General Catalyst, and Elad Gil, most recently a $150 million Series C at a $3 billion valuation.

We’re building a team that moves quickly, takes ownership, and wants to make a meaningful impact on how the world’s largest organizations work. Come help us build what’s next for enterprise service management.

Role Overview

As Application Security Lead, you'll build and scale the foundations of Serval's product and application security program. You will set the strategy and drive execution for secure software development, vulnerability management, threat modeling, and security architecture across our platform and the agentic systems our customers trust us to run inside their most sensitive environments.

You'll be a hands-on leader with deep technical credibility and strong engineering instincts. You will build and mentor a team, partner closely with Engineering and Product, and ensure that security is designed into the systems that power Serval from the first line of code rather than bolted on later.

What You'll Do

  • Design, implement, and operate Serval's application security program, including secure SDLC practices, threat modeling, secure design review, code review, and remediation of vulnerabilities across our services, agent platform, integrations, and customer-facing surfaces.
  • Build, lead, and directly mentor a team spanning product security, secure software development, and vulnerability management, hiring and scaling these functions deliberately and proportionately as Serval's platform and customer footprint grow.
  • Establish world-class engineering rigor through secure coding standards, paved-path libraries and frameworks, security design patterns that scale security expertise across the engineering organization.
  • Improve security coverage and signal quality by building and tuning the automated tooling that catches issues early (SAST, DAST, SCA, secrets scanning, dependency and supply-chain controls, and CI/CD security gates) and by partnering with engineering to make findings reliable, actionable, and low-friction to fix.
  • Own the vulnerability lifecycle end-to-end: intake from internal testing, researchers, and bug bounty; triage and severity assessment; SLAs and remediation tracking; and coordinated disclosure.
  • Partner deeply across Engineering, Product, and Infrastructure to embed security into Serval's systems by design, driving strong authentication and authorization, tenant isolation, data protection, secrets management, and the security of the agentic, tool-using workflows at the heart of the platform.
  • Build a security program capable of withstanding sophisticated adversaries, including by tackling the novel application-security challenges of agentic AI (prompt injection, unsafe tool use, data exfiltration, and abuse of autonomous actions) and by using Serval's own agents to solve frontier security problems.

What You'll Need

  • Have 10+ years in cybersecurity with deep expertise in application security, secure software development, and vulnerability management.
  • Have deep experience building and leading application/product security, secure-SDLC, and vulnerability-management functions.
  • Have stellar leadership skills and a demonstrated history of driving durable, continuous improvements to programs, processes, and people.
  • Have strong software engineering fundamentals and can read, write, and review production code, partnering with engineers as a peer rather than a gatekeeper.
  • Have exceptional written and verbal communication skills, can remain calm under pressure, and can effectively influence engineering and product decisions across a diverse gamut of teams, expertise, and seniority.
  • Have deep expertise in modern application security tooling and primitives (SAST, DAST, SCA, secrets detection, fuzzing, software supply-chain security) and in secure cloud-native and distributed-systems architecture.
  • Understand modern adversary tradecraft (TTPs) and how application-layer weaknesses are exploited, and have demonstrated experience translating that into practical secure-design guidance and prioritized remediation.
  • Are mission-oriented, have unimpeachable integrity, and are passionate about building secure software in a highly complex, fast-paced environment. Bonus points if you're excited about the security challenges unique to AI agents.

What We Offer

  • Impact : Be a key player in shaping the success of our product and company.
  • Growth : Build a fundamentally new AI product offering with the support of our experienced team and investors. Grow rapidly with the company.
  • Culture : Join a culture that values innovation, ownership, accountability, and fun.

Text as Serval published it; last compared with the original on 11 Nov 2026.

The application

Your details, CV and LinkedIn, then 1 question.

Have readyCVLinkedIn
  1. 1.
    Are you able and willing to work from our San Francisco HQ 5 days a week (or relocate if needed)?Yes or no

Taken from Serval's application form as it stood on 11 Nov 2026.

The employer: Serval

Serval automates employee IT requests, onboarding and just-in-time access with AI agents; its security engineers protect a product that touches customers' access controls.

Pay and benefits: In-office San Francisco roles at an early startup.

Let security teams come to you

Security teams sometimes ask us directly for someone with a given specialty, clearance or certification. Join the candidate pool once and we put you forward when a brief matches, and only after you say yes. No cost to you.

Create my profile

Hear first when Serval posts a security role

We read Serval's careers system around the clock and send its new security roles in a weekly email, along with comparable openings at other employers. Free; leave whenever you like.