Principal Security Researcher

An overview of the role

We are seeking a Principal Security Researcher to join our Application Security Team to conduct cutting-edge security research on GitLab's AI-powered DevSecOps capabilities. As GitLab transforms software development through intelligent collaboration between developers and specialized AI agents, we need security researchers who can proactively identify and validate vulnerabilities before they impact our platform or customers.

In this role, you'll be at the forefront of security research, working with our GitLab DevSecOps platform, Duo Agent Platform, GitLab Duo Chat, and AI workflows that represent the future of human/AI collaborative development. You'll develop novel testing methodologies (including for AI agent security), conduct hands-on penetration testing, and translate emerging threats into actionable security improvements. Your research will directly influence how we build and secure the next generation of AI-powered DevSecOps tools, ensuring GitLab remains the most secure software factory platform on the market.

This position offers the unique opportunity to shape security and AI security practices in one of the world's largest DevSecOps platforms, working with engineering teams who are pushing the boundaries of what's possible with AI-assisted software development. You'll have access to cutting-edge AI systems and the freedom to explore creative attack scenarios while contributing to the security of millions of developers worldwide.

This role reports to the Senior Manager of Application Security.

What you'll do 

• Conduct and lead security research projects across multiple functional areas.
• Identify novel, systemic, and chained vulnerabilities in GitLab, where individual weaknesses combine for outsized impact.
• Validate security vulnerabilities through hands-on testing, developing proof-of-concept exploits that demonstrate real-world attack scenarios.
• Assess emerging industry vulnerability classes against the GitLab codebase, and drive remediation of the class rather than the instance.
• Lead security research into GitLab's AI and agentic surfaces, and define the security requirements that engineering teams build against.
• Build and direct the tooling and automation that scales security research, including agent-assisted vulnerability discovery across our codebase.
• Research the security posture of open source tools and dependencies integrated with GitLab, report findings to their maintainers, and track mitigation following our responsible disclosure guidelines.
• Solve technical problems of the highest scope, complexity, and ambiguity.
• Help shape the team and sub-department roadmap.
• Lead the integration of security research results into the engineering and business functions that need to act on them.
• Teach, mentor, and advise other domain experts and individual contributors across several teams.
• Share knowledge and novel vulnerability types with the security community.

What you'll bring

• 10+ years of experience in security research, penetration testing, or offensive security roles
• Strong ability in discovering and exploiting vulnerabilities in large codebase and complex systems
• Proficiency in two or more of Ruby, Go, Python, TypeScript, or Rust. 
• Ability to read and analyze code across multiple languages and codebases
• Strong knowledge of AI frameworks
• Strong understanding of AI attack vectors including prompt injection, agent manipulation, and workflow exploitation
• At ease in establishing and driving complex remediation initiatives involving cross-functional teams
• Excellent written communication skills with an ability to articulate complex topics in a clear and concise manner.
• Ability to translate complex technical findings into clear risk assessments and remediation recommendations
• Strong analytical and problem-solving skills with creative thinking about attack scenarios
• Nice to Have: Published security research or conference presentations; background in software engineering with distributed systems expertise; experience with GitLab or similar DevSecOps platforms

About the team

Security Researchers are a part of our Application Security team, who address complex security challenges facing GitLab and its customers to enable GitLab to be the most secure software factory platform on the market. We focus on systemic product security risks and work cross-functionally to mitigate them while maintaining Engineering's development velocity.

United States Salary Range 203200 - 275000 USD