Note: The job is a remote job and is open to candidates in USA. Kai is an AI company focused on revolutionizing cybersecurity for the machine-speed era. They are seeking a Senior Software Engineer with expertise in static analysis to lead and enhance their core analysis platform, ensuring effective vulnerability detection and prioritization for security teams.
Responsibilities
- Own the technical direction of our static analysis stack—from IR/bytecode analysis through inter-procedural CFG and data-flow systems—and make principled trade-offs between precision, scalability, and time-to-ship
- Define and evolve reachability and exploitability models for application and dependency vulnerabilities, aligning analysis outputs with how security teams prioritize and remediate risk
- Set standards for analysis quality across complex real-world patterns (reflection, dynamic dispatch, indirect calls, framework-specific behavior) and decide which gaps to solve with deeper analysis vs. heuristics vs. ecosystem integration
- Drive language and runtime expansion by evaluating coverage gaps, sequencing language support, and choosing the right abstractions so new languages don’t require reinventing the core engine
- Lead performance and scalability initiatives for enterprise-scale codebases—profiling bottlenecks, shaping architecture for parallel/distributed analysis, and establishing measurable targets for throughput and resource use
- Partner with security researchers to translate emerging threat models and vulnerability classes into concrete analysis capabilities, test cases, and product requirements
- Collaborate with platform engineers on APIs, CI/CD integration, and developer workflows so analysis results are actionable in production pipelines—not just technically correct
- Guide engineering execution through design reviews, technical specs, and hands-on prototyping; mentor engineers on program analysis concepts and our analysis architecture
- Identify and champion patentable and foundational innovations that strengthen our long-term technical moat in code security analysis
Skills
- 7+ years of software engineering experience, with 4+ years in static analysis, program analysis, compiler infrastructure, or closely related domains
- Deep understanding of core program analysis concepts: Control-flow and data-flow analysis, Call graph construction, Inter-procedural analysis
- Taint tracking and reachability analysis
- Hands-on experience working with IRs, bytecode, ASTs, or compiler/analysis pipelines - not just using tools, but understanding how analysis is built
- Strong programming skills in Java, Go, C++, or comparable systems/backend languages, with comfort working across analysis engine codebases
- Practical experience handling real-world language and runtime complexity - reflection, dynamic dispatch, indirect calls, and framework-specific behavior
- Experience building scalable analysis or backend systems for large, production codebases, with attention to performance and reliability
- Technical judgment and ownership - able to make architecture and trade-off decisions, drive design direction, and work effectively with minimal oversight
- Comfort operating in a fast-moving startup environment, balancing depth of analysis with shipping velocity and product impact
- Deep experience with LLVM, MLIR, SSA-based analysis, or comparable compiler/analysis IRs—and judgment on when to build vs. integrate existing frameworks
- Background in application security or vulnerability analysis, with practical understanding of reachability, exploitability, and how security teams triage and remediate findings
- Experience building developer tooling, compilers, or security infrastructure at scale—where correctness, performance, and usability all matter
- Familiarity with program analysis research, with interest in applying academic advances to real-world codebases and product constraints
- Track record of technical leadership - architecture decisions, design reviews, mentoring, or driving cross-functional initiatives in complex engineering domains
Benefits
- Highly competitive salary
- Meaningful equity
- A culture where your contributions are recognized and rewarded as we grow
Company Overview
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