Founding VP of Engineering

Equity Partnership | Available Immediately | Full-Time

We're building AI that reasons like elite pentesters. Backed by Cloudflare, paying customers, real traction. Need an engineering leader to own everything technical.

ABOUT THE ROLE

Founder-level position. You'll work directly with a technical founder to scale a working product into a platform ready for rapid growth. Sophisticated codebase—not technical debt.

You'll inherit:

  • Multi-agent AI system for automated penetration testing
  • Proprietary tech enabling AI to operate security tools with human-level fluency
  • CREST-certified delivery in 48 hours (vs. 6-8 weeks traditional)

WHAT YOU'LL BUILD

  • AI Agent Architecture — Scale LLM orchestration, improve reasoning, expand attack vector coverage
  • Virtual Patching Platform — Expand instant remediation to new deployment modes and frameworks
  • Continuous Validation — Build CI/CD integrations that trigger security testing on code changes
  • Infrastructure — Scale Python, Node.js, Supabase, Cloudflare, AWS stack for 24/7 global delivery

You'll hire and lead an engineering team (first hire: Senior AI/ML Engineer).

REQUIREMENTS

Must have:

  • Available within 1 month
  • Comfortable with equity-only for 3+ months (you need runway)
  • 8+ years engineering, 3+ years leadership (VP/Director/founding engineer)
  • Strong offensive security knowledge — you understand how pentesting works, how exploits chain, what makes a finding valid vs. noise
  • Deep Python and/or Node.js production experience
  • Shipped AI/ML-powered products (not just LLM experiments)
  • Hands-on — you'll write code, review PRs, debug production issues

Great to have:

  • Hands-on pentesting experience (OSCP, OSWE, CREST certs a plus)
  • Experience with Burp Suite, Metasploit, Nuclei, or custom exploit development
  • Agentic AI / multi-agent orchestration experience
  • AWS, Cloudflare Workers, edge computing expertise
  • Previous seed/Series A startup experience

COMPENSATION

  • Significant founding-team equity (4-year vest, 1-year cliff)
  • $0 salary until seed closes (3+ months minimum)
  • Competitive salary post-funding
  • Full-time commitment (40+ hrs/week)

WHY NOW

  • Real traction: Paying customers, revenue within months of launch
  • Real backing: Cloudflare investor, experienced advisors
  • Real tech: Proprietary AI platform, not a GPT wrapper
  • Real market: Massive TAM, regulatory tailwinds
  • Ground floor: Early equity in AI security

HOW TO APPLY

Send LinkedIn/resume + 250-word note answering:

  • Most complex technical system you've built or scaled?
  • Why AI-powered security excites you?
  • Why equity-only works for you?

Include proof of work: GitHub, architecture docs, system you designed, team you built.

DON'T APPLY IF

  • You need salary immediately
  • You want a VP title more than building something real
  • You've never worked at an early-stage startup
  • You can't start within 1 month
  • You want to manage without writing code

About ManticoreAI

ManticoreAI is an AI-driven penetration testing platform that accelerates security assessments through advanced AI technology and expert validation. Reduce costs, save time, and strengthen security with rapid, accurate, and continuous evaluations.

Apply now

Please let ManticoreAI know you found this job on ManagerTrack. This helps us grow!

Apply now

Unlock thousands of jobs and get more interviews

Let us do the heavy lifting and sift through the noise in your job search to get the most relevant jobs in front of you

What’s included

  • Advanced search filters
  • 24 hour advanced access to new jobs
  • Email alerts

Pay monthly, cancel anytime

$19.99/month

Join now

Invoices and receipts available for easy company reimbursement