Software Engineer - Distributed Systems & AI

At Robinhood, our mission is to democratize finance for all. As an estimated $124 trillion of assets transfers to younger generations over the next two decades, we are building frontier technologies to solve the world's largest financial challenges.

The AI Security team builds a scalable, secure AI platform that empowers security engineering teams across Robinhood to develop, deploy, and operate AI-powered agents and security capabilities with confidence.

As a Software Engineer on the AI Security team, you will solve complex engineering challenges at the intersection of artificial intelligence, distributed systems, and security platform architecture. You will design and build foundational platform primitives, APIs, SDKs, identity frameworks, authentication/authorization controls, encryption modules, and platform guardrails—enabling internal engineering pods to safely adopt autonomous AI agents while ensuring zero-trust security is built into the infrastructure by default.

Key Responsibilities

• AI Security Platform Engineering: Design, build, and maintain the scalable platform infrastructure required for internal security teams to deploy and operate AI-powered agents and workflows.
• Platform Primitives & Developer Tooling: Build reusable core platform services, APIs, libraries, and SDKs using Go or Python to streamline secure AI application development.
• Security & Identity Architecture: Implement robust identity management, authentication, authorization, data protection, and encryption controls across distributed AI workloads.
• Distributed Systems Reliability: Architect high-throughput, cloud-native distributed systems using AWS, Kubernetes, gRPC, and Kafka to support low-latency AI agent execution.
• AI Safety & Guardrails: Develop platform-level safety controls and runtime guardrails to mitigate AI agent risks, prompt misuse, and unauthorized data exfiltration.
• Cross-Functional Partnership: Collaborate with security leads, infrastructure architects, and developer experience teams to translate operational security requirements into platform capabilities.

Requirements

Software Engineering & Security Systems Depth

• 3+ years of professional software development experience.
• 2+ years of experience building large-scale distributed systems with direct experience designing security concepts (authentication, authorization, identity, or encryption).
• AI Infrastructure & Platform Experience: Hands-on background building AI platforms, ML infrastructure, or production systems that support LLMs, AI-powered applications, or autonomous agents.
• Polyglot Systems Programming: Strong proficiency in Go or Python with demonstrated skills in production debugging, profiling, and system optimization.
• Cloud-Native Tech Stack: Direct experience with modern distributed systems technologies such as AWS, Kubernetes, gRPC, or Kafka.
• Security Fundamentals: Solid understanding of software security design patterns, zero-trust principles, and enterprise threat models.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience designing internal developer portals, SDKs, or API gateways for enterprise ML/AI adoption.
• Familiarity with LLM security frameworks (OWASP Top 10 for LLMs, prompt injection defense mechanisms, agentic access control).
• Prior experience working within high-growth fintech, crypto, or highly regulated financial infrastructure environments.

Total Rewards & Benefits

• Compensation & Equity: Performance-driven compensation with multipliers for outsized impact, bonus programs, equity grants, and 401(k) matching.
• Healthcare & Wellness: 100% employer-paid health coverage for employees (90% for dependents), paid life/disability insurance, fertility benefits, and mental health programs.
• Employee Investment Fund: Access to the Robinhood Employee Fund, providing eligible US employees exposure to Robinhood Ventures private funds.
• Lifestyle & Growth: Flexible lifestyle spending wallet for wellness and continuous learning + access to top-tier enterprise AI tools and AI skill-building.
• On-Site Perks: Catered meals, coffee bars, collaborative workspaces, and team events.