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NVIDIA

US, MA, Westford; US, CA, Santa Clara; United States of America

Senior Research Scientist, AI for Cybersecurity

Posted 22 Oct

Level
Senior
Experience
5+ years
Work style
Not stated
Full-time
Area
Security engineering

At a glance

The role in plain English

This senior research role focuses on advancing AI models and agents for cybersecurity, including vulnerability discovery, threat detection, and automated defence. The position suits experienced researchers with a strong background in AI and security, who can define research agendas, lead projects, and collaborate across teams. Day-to-day work includes developing and evaluating prototypes, publishing research, and mentoring others, with a mix of hands-on technical work and cross-functional collaboration.

What you'll do

  • Define and lead research projects on AI for cybersecurity
  • Advance model and agent capabilities for security tasks
  • Develop and evaluate AI-powered security prototypes
  • Collaborate with research, engineering, and product teams
  • Mentor researchers and interns, publish original research

What they're looking for

Essential

  • Ph.D. in relevant field or equivalent experience
  • 5+ years relevant research experience
  • Deep expertise in AI or security research areas
  • Experience leading multi-disciplinary research projects
  • Strong prototyping skills with Python and AI/ML frameworks

Core skills

  • AI/ML frameworks
  • Python
  • Security operations
  • Vulnerability research
  • Malware analysis
  • Program analysis
  • Model training
  • Experimental design

The shape of the job

Technical depth

5/5

FoundationalSpecialist

Pace

3/5

SteadyFast-moving

Ownership

5/5

GuidedSelf-directed

Teamwork

4/5

Heads-downHighly collaborative

Cyberend's reading of the listing, not the employer's own scores.

Application toolkit

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Questions to prepare for

  1. 01Describe your experience advancing AI models for cybersecurity applications.
  2. 02How would you design an experiment to evaluate a new AI-powered threat detection tool?
  3. 03Can you give an example of leading a multi-disciplinary research project?
  4. 04What are the main challenges in deploying AI agents in real-world security environments?

About NVIDIA

NVIDIA develops accelerated computing and AI systems. The company has research, product, and engineering teams working on AI and security.

Full job descriptionAs published by NVIDIA

We are looking for a Senior Scientist to lead research on advancing AI models and agents for cybersecurity and applying them to important security problems. This includes improving capabilities such as security reasoning, code and system understanding, planning, tool use, long-horizon investigation, and effective collaboration with human defenders, as well as applying these capabilities to vulnerability discovery, secure development, threat and anomaly detection, malware and attack analysis, incident investigation, security validation, and automated defense.

The ideal candidate will advance the underlying models, agent architectures, data, training and post-training methods, and evaluations needed for effective cybersecurity, while addressing the requirements of real security environments: high precision, robustness to adaptive adversaries, explainability, privacy, secure deployment, and effective human oversight. You will connect foundational AI and security research with practical tools and workflows that materially improve prevention, detection, investigation, and response. NVIDIA is a leader in accelerated computing and AI systems. This role offers the opportunity to set research direction, influence future platforms, and translate foundational advances into practical capabilities in collaboration with research, product, and engineering teams.

What you'll be doing:

  • Define a high-impact research agenda and lead projects that advance AI models and agents for cybersecurity and apply them to important security problems.
  • Improve model and agent capabilities for security reasoning, code and system understanding, planning, tool use, memory, long-horizon investigation, and collaboration with human defenders through advances in architectures, data, training, post-training, and evaluation.
  • Develop AI-powered capabilities for vulnerability discovery, secure development, threat detection, malware analysis, incident investigation, security validation, and automated defense that are robust to adversarial manipulation, uncertainty, distribution shift, and incomplete or noisy operational data.
  • Build and evaluate prototypes in realistic environments, measuring detection quality, false positives, time to insight, analyst effectiveness, security risk, and operational scalability.
  • Collaborate across AI, security, research, engineering, and product teams; publish original research; mentor researchers and interns; and help translate advances into deployed capabilities.

What we need to see:

  • A Ph.D. in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, Electrical Engineering, or a related field, or equivalent experience.
  • 5+ years of relevant experience. An established record of research excellence demonstrated through influential publications, open-source systems, patents, technology transfer, or substantial research collaborations.
  • Deep expertise in one or more relevant areas such as agentic AI, model training, reasoning and tool use, machine learning for security, vulnerability research, program analysis, software security, intrusion detection, malware analysis, or security operations.
  • Experience defining and leading ambiguous, multi-disciplinary research projects and providing technical mentorship.
  • Strong experimental and prototyping skills; Python and relevant AI/ML frameworks, including experience training, adapting, or evaluating models or agents; experience with systems software, security tooling, or large-scale data systems.
  • Excellent written and verbal communication skills and the ability to work effectively with both AI researchers and security practitioners.

Are you a creative, collaborative, and self-directed researcher who can advance AI agents for cybersecurity, expand what they can do for defenders, and turn new ideas into high-impact research and technology? If so, we want to hear from you!

Your base salary will be determined based on your location, experience, and the pay of employees in similar positions. The base salary range is 224,000 USD - 356,500 USD for Level 5, and 272,000 USD - 431,250 USD for Level 6.

You will also be eligible for equity and benefits .

Applications for this job will be accepted at least until October 26, 2026.

This posting is for an existing vacancy.

NVIDIA uses AI tools in its recruiting processes.

NVIDIA is committed to fostering an inclusive work environment and proud to be an equal opportunity employer. As we highly value diversity in our current and future employees, we do not discriminate (including in our hiring and promotion practices) on the basis of race, religion, color, national origin, gender, gender expression, sexual orientation, age, marital status, veteran status, disability status or any other characteristic protected by law.

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