Security Engineer Jobs in San Francisco, USA

Looking for a security engineer job in San Francisco? Choose from 103 open roles at 46 employers. Explore real salary data and skills breakdown across remote, hybrid and on-site roles.

103 Open roles
46 Companies hiring
284K Average salary

What do Security engineers in San Francisco work on?

The titles and summaries here span a wide spectrum of security disciplines. Several roles sit squarely in AI and machine learning security, such as the Senior Application Security Engineer, AI and Machine Learning at Lightning AI, which involves threat modelling, code audits, and security tooling for inference systems. Others operate at the infrastructure layer: the Software Engineer, HSM Infrastructure Security at OpenAI focuses on firmware, cryptographic interfaces, and hardware roots of trust. Identity and access management appears in roles like Software Engineer, Security at Harvey, where the work centres on authentication, authorisation, and secrets management for production services. Strategic and advisory work also features: the Principal AI Security SA at Amazon involves advising senior leaders and producing reference architectures for secure AI adoption. The Anthropic Fellows Program stands apart as a structured four-month research fellowship. Across the sample, building automation and tooling, conducting architecture reviews, and collaborating on cloud-hosted systems appear consistently.

Skills and experience employers ask for

Python and cloud platforms โ€” particularly AWS and GCP โ€” are the most commonly mentioned skills across these postings, with agent-related concepts and LLMs also appearing in a notable share, reflecting the AI-company concentration in this sample. CI/CD, Kubernetes, and Terraform appear in a meaningful minority. Because these counts come from keyword mentions in descriptions rather than stated requirements, and the sample is limited to these postings only, the figures indicate emphasis rather than universal expectation.

Python 61%
Agents 50%
AWS 42%
GCP 36%
LLMs 33%
APIs 33%
CI/CD 32%
Kubernetes 26%
Azure 21%
Terraform 18%
Evaluation 15%
TypeScript 14%
C\+\+ 13%
Go 12%

Security Engineer roles that state a salary

The employers' own advertised ranges, for individual roles at different levels โ€” not an average and not a market rate.

San Francisco office, hybrid or remote?

Most postings in this set are listed as onsite, with a smaller share marked hybrid. Only a very small number are listed as fully remote. No postings have an unknown work mode, so the picture here is relatively clear compared with many job samples. However, exact hybrid arrangements โ€” such as how many days on-site are expected โ€” are not detailed in the fact pack, and candidates should check individual postings for those specifics.

Make your application specific to the work

  1. Read the full posting carefully Security engineer roles here vary considerably in discipline โ€” hardware, application, identity, AI safety research โ€” so confirm the specific domain and seniority match your background before applying.
  2. Prepare relevant technical evidence Postings reference threat modelling, cryptographic systems, IAM infrastructure, and offensive security, so be ready to describe concrete past work in whichever of these areas the role emphasises.
  3. Check pay transparency before applying Only a minority of postings include advertised pay ranges; if compensation is important to your decision, look for those that disclose figures or be prepared to ask the employer directly.
  4. Confirm onsite expectations upfront The majority of roles are listed as onsite in San Francisco, so verify the exact location requirements and any hybrid flexibility with the employer before progressing through a process.

Questions about Security Engineer jobs in San Francisco

In these postings, Anthropic has the highest count, followed by OpenAI, then Harvey, with Okta, Notion, and Decagon also featuring multiple listings. Other employers on the page have fewer postings each.

Among the postings that disclose pay, advertised ranges vary widely. OpenAI lists ranges from $266,000 up to $445,000 for several roles, with one HSM-focused role starting at $347,000. Perplexity advertises $220,000โ€“$405,000 for two roles, and Decagon lists $200,000โ€“$400,000 for a senior platform security position. These are individual advertised ranges from specific postings, not a market-wide figure.

A very small number of postings in this set are listed as remote; the large majority are onsite, with a portion marked hybrid. Specific hybrid arrangements are not detailed in the postings summarised here.

Python is mentioned in roughly half the postings in this set. AWS, GCP, and Azure appear across a wide share of listings, alongside CI/CD tooling and Kubernetes. Go, C++, and TypeScript come up in a smaller number. These are mention counts in descriptions, not confirmed requirements for every role.

Based on the summary in these postings, it is a four-month full-time fellowship focused on AI safety and security research, with a weekly stipend rather than a permanent salary. It is not listed as a standard employment role.

Jobs checked 1 hour ago. ยท Guide reviewed 14 September 2026.