Senior/Staff Security Engineer
About Sandbar
Sandbar is an interface company in New York City. We aim to expand human thinking. Our team has built software, ML, hardware, and consumer products across Meta, CTRL-labs, Apple, Peloton, and Equinox.
Our first product is Stream, a private voice ring that extends your thinking. Stream has been featured in WSJ, Bloomberg, Wired, and Time's Best Inventions of the Year.
Join us in creating technology that extends human thinking.
About
We’re looking for a senior or staff backend engineer with deep security expertise to help build Stream, a new conversational interface. Stream is a self extension that people use to expand their own thinking. We believe thoughts belong only to you and must be private.
You’ll own the backend systems that make that privacy real: how user data is encrypted, how keys are managed, how services and people authenticate to our infrastructure, and how we detect and respond to problems. You’ll define security at Sandbar, working inside a small backend team on a live production service rather than in a separate security function.
Responsibilities
Design and ship end-to-end encryption for user data, including key management and keeping search and background processing working on encrypted data
Build confidential-computing infrastructure so sensitive processing is isolated and verifiable, including attestation and reproducible builds
Own identity and secrets across the stack: short-lived workload credentials, least-privilege service identities, environment isolation, and auditable privileged access
Own supply chain and CI/CD security
Build the detection and response loop: audit logging, alerting, runbooks, and post-incident reviews that end in engineering changes rather than documents
Drive vendor and data-handling security: AI provider data agreements, third-party integration and OAuth scope review, and data retention and deletion
Lead compliance work (e.g. SOC 2) from the engineering side, with controls enforced by systems and evidence produced automatically
Carry a share of the core backend: build product features on the real-time Python services you secure, and review the team’s changes with a security eye
Set direction on secure engineering practice through design reviews, threat models, and clear, minimal guidance that engineers actually follow
Qualifications
7+ years building and operating backend systems, with meaningful time as the engineer accountable for security on a production service
Strong Python and comfort owning a live, real-time service end to end
Hands-on applied cryptography: envelope encryption, authenticated encryption, key hierarchies, and the practical mistakes that break otherwise-correct designs
Deep cloud security experience on AWS and/or GCP: IAM, workload identity federation, KMS, secrets management, audit logging
Experience leading incident response on a production service, from containment through follow-up hardening
Experience with confidential computing or attestation (e.g. Nitro Enclaves, SEV-SNP, TDX, App Attest) strongly preferred
Comfortable with document stores and their access-control models
Able to make tradeoffs explicitly and ship: you know the difference between a control that gates a launch and one that can follow
Communicate precisely with engineers, founders, auditors, and vendors
Nice to have
iOS security primitives (Secure Enclave, Keychain)
Bluetooth LE device security, firmware signing, or secure pairing
Experience with retrieval systems or LLM infrastructure and their data-flow controls
SOC 2 or ISO 27001 audit experience from the engineering side
FTE Benefits
Health, vision, and dental benefits
Company-sponsored 401(k)
Unlimited PTO and sick time
Early stage equity