Sr. Staff Platform Security Engineer, Cloud Infrastructure at Groq in San Francisco, CA

Job description

Mission: Build and scale the security foundations that enable customers to run sensitive AI workloads with confidence on Groq's inference platform. You will set technical direction and build critical security capabilities across identity and access, Kubernetes, multi-tenant infrastructure, secrets, encryption, and key and certificate management. As a senior software engineer and technical leader, you will partner across Platform Engineering to turn complex security requirements into durable, automated systems that scale with the platform. Location: This role will be based in one of our three hiring hubs: the Dallas, San Francisco, or New York City area . The person hired for this role must be based in one of these three areas. You’ll have the flexibility to work remotely while we establish our local Groq office, with the expectation that this role will transition to onsite once the office opens. Responsibilities & opportunities in this role: Set technical direction and own the architecture for critical platform security capabilities across identity, authorization, infrastructure security, encryption, key management, and auditability. Design and build identity and access systems spanning authentication, federation, authorization, workload identity, lifecycle provisioning, and administrative access. Build and scale security capabilities for Kubernetes and other distributed infrastructure using software, policy, automation, APIs, controllers, Infrastructure-as-Code, and GitOps. Architect security controls and isolation mechanisms for multi-tenant systems across compute, network, storage, and control-plane boundaries. Own infrastructure lifecycle security, including secure provisioning, secrets and credential management, encryption, and certificate lifecycle. Build production software and automation that make secure infrastructure patterns reliable, scalable, and easy for engineering teams to adopt. Lead security-sensitive platform designs and changes, translating complex risks and requirements into practical engineering decisions and scalable platform capabilities. Shape security architecture and technical standards across Platform Engineering, influencing designs beyond the systems you directly own. Partner across engineering and security to build capabilities that strengthen customer trust, platform reliability, and support compliance requirements. Clearly communicate security architecture, technical tradeoffs, and risk to engineers, technical leaders, and security leadership. Ideal candidates have/are: 6+ years of software engineering experience building complex infrastructure or distributed systems, with deep experience in cloud and platform security, identity and access, Kubernetes, or related infrastructure security domains. Demonstrated experience setting technical direction and owning complex security architecture across multiple systems, teams, or infrastructure domains. Deep experience with identity and access technologies such as OIDC, SAML, SCIM, RBAC, workload identity, short-lived credentials, and multi-factor authentication. Deep experience designing security for multi-tenant systems and isolation across network, compute, storage, and control-plane boundaries. Hands-on Kubernetes security expertise, including RBAC, admission control, service-account and workload identity, secrets and encryption, policy enforcement, and node security. Strong understanding of secrets management, encryption, key management, certificate lifecycle, and secure credential management. Strong software engineering skills in Go, Python, or similar languages, with experience designing, building, and operating production systems. A software-first approach to security, with experience building controls through APIs, controllers, automation, policy, Infrastructure-as-Code, GitOps, or similar approaches. Experience leading ambiguous, cross-functional technical initiatives and influencing engineering direction across teams. Ability to reason about