Staff Product Security Engineer, Secure Design (Kernel and Virtualization)

What you’ll do:
Propose and implement mitigations and defense-in-depth to threats discovered through threat modeling the virtualization stack (90%)

Provide deep technical expertise in systems architecture, kernel security features and network architecture to build out a threat model for our virtualization stack
Identify the trade-offs of different solutions and recommend the efficient design to achieve both functional goals and security requirements. We do not deliver mandates; we work alongside cross-functional partners to find mutually beneficial solutions.
Collaborate with development teams to implement remediations and defense in depth to protect DigitalOcean’s customers’ workloads.
Cultivate and promote a security culture (10%)

Mentor software engineering teams in security best practices.
Help oversee our vulnerability management program (we call it security debt).
Help DigitalOcean engineers understand how security events impact them. Do they need to worry about the next Redfish or Copy Fail CVEs? How does RetBleed impact DigitalOcean’s fleet?
What you’ll add to DigitalOcean:

Required qualifications:

Deep familiarity with at least one kernel security feature (ex: AppArmor, SELinux, Landlock, etc.)
Capable of assessing and understanding the performance implications of code changes to virtualization stacks (especially in Qemu and KVM), built from hands-on experience. Experience
A record of partnering with internal engineering teams to tackle security problems across an entire stack with empathy and creativity. Engineering teams are our partners, not our adversaries.
Ability to clearly communicate security topics and vulnerability classes (e.g. memory corruption, privilege escalation, TOCTOU, etc) and ability to provide actionable direction to product teams.
Working knowledge of modern development concepts (virtualized environments, containerization, continuous integration + delivery).

Preferred qualifications:

5+ years of writing systems level code (embedded systems, kernel, assembly or similar).
Experience guiding software teams on secure architecture design.
Written code for an embedded system (raspberry pi, arduino, etc).
Experience building or reviewing threat models and ability to craft malicious user, attacker, and abuse/misuse cases.
An understanding of patches and mitigations for hardware side-channel attacks.
Familiarity with object oriented and functional programming concepts, particularly with languages such as Go, Rust, or C.

Compensation Range:
$180,000-$215,000

Why You’ll Like Working for DigitalOcean
We innovate with purpose. You’ll be a part of a cutting-edge technology company with an upward trajectory, who are proud to simplify cloud and AI so builders can spend more time creating software that changes the world. As a member of the team, you will be a Shark who thinks big, bold, and scrappy, like an owner with a bias for action and a powerful sense of responsibility for customers, products, employees, and decisions.
We prioritize career development. At DO, you’ll do the best work of your career. You will work with some of the smartest and most interesting people in the industry. We are a high-performance organization that will always challenge you to think big. Our organizational development team will provide you with resources to ensure you keep growing. We provide employees with reimbursement for relevant conferences, training, and education. All employees have access to LinkedIn Learning's 10,000+ courses to support their continued growth and development.
We care about your well-being. Regardless of your location, we will provide you with a competitive array of benefits to support you from our Employee Assistance Program to Local Employee Meetups to flexible time off policy, to name a few. While the philosophy around our benefits is the same worldwide, specific benefits may vary based on local regulations and preferences.
We reward our employees. The salary range for this position is based on market data, relevant years of experience, and skills. You may qualify for a bonus in addition to base salary; bonus amounts are determined based on company and individual performance. We also provide equity compensation to eligible employees, including equity grants upon hire and the option to participate in our Employee Stock Purchase Program.
DigitalOcean is an equal-opportunity employer. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, color, ancestry, national origin, caste, sex, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity or expression, age, disability, medical condition, pregnancy, genetic makeup, marital status, or military service.
Application Limit: You may apply to a maximum of 3 positions within any 180-day period. This policy promotes better role-candidate matching and encourages thoughtful applications where your qualifications align most strongly.

Skills Required
Deep familiarity with at least one kernel security feature (e.g., AppArmor, SELinux, Landlock)
Ability to assess and understand performance implications of code changes to virtualization stacks, especially QEMU and KVM, from hands-on experience
Record of partnering with internal engineering teams to tackle security problems across an entire stack with empathy and creativity
Ability to clearly communicate security topics and vulnerability classes (e.g., memory corruption, privilege escalation, TOCTOU) and provide actionable direction to product teams
Working knowledge of modern development concepts (virtualized environments, containerization, continuous integration and delivery)
5+ years of writing systems-level code (embedded systems, kernel, assembly, or similar)
Experience guiding software teams on secure architecture design
Experience writing code for embedded systems (Raspberry Pi, Arduino, etc.)
Experience building or reviewing threat models and crafting malicious user, attacker, and abuse/misuse cases
Understanding of patches and mitigations for hardware side-channel attacks
Familiarity with object-oriented and functional programming concepts and languages such as Go, Rust, or C