Head of Research

Description

About Backslash

Backslash is a Series A startup on a mission to make AI-assisted development safe by default. As AI coding agents and modern dev environments like Cursor and Claude Code reshape how software is written, we are building the security layer that understands where AI introduces new, hidden risk and protects against it. We are a focused team with a simple goal: let engineering teams adopt AI at full speed with maximum visibility and safety.

The role

You will lead Backslash's security research - discovering how AI coding agents create new attack surfaces, and turning those findings into product direction and market narrative. This is a hands-on role where you drive original research while managing broader research activities across the company. You will be a trusted technical voice across product, architecture, and marketing. You report to the CTO.

What you will do

• Lead security research on AI coding agent attack surfaces, emerging threats, and novel vulnerability classes - from MCP security to prompt injection in dev environments
• Publish original research - blog posts, conference talks, CVEs, technical deep-dives - that establishes Backslash as a thought leader in AI security
• Feed research findings into product - identify security weaknesses, inform architecture decisions, and shape the roadmap
• Track the AI security landscape - tools, protocols, attack vectors, academic research - and translate what matters into what we build
• Be a go-to technical resource for marketing, sales, and product - translating research into content, customer conversations, and competitive positioning

What success looks like in your first 6 months

• Published 2-3 pieces of original research that the AI security community is talking about
• Identified novel attack classes specific to AI coding agents that shaped our product roadmap
• Became a trusted technical voice in customer conversations and industry events
• Built a clear research agenda for the following 12 months

What you bring

• Established security researcher - you've done this work long enough to have a track record and a point of view
• Prior experience in a similar role - security research lead, principal researcher, or equivalent
• Experience with AI/LLM security - prompt injection, agent-based attacks, model supply chain risks
• Understanding of endpoint security, agent architectures, and local-machine threat models
• Offensive mindset - you instinctively think about how to break things, not just how to describe them
• Published research track record (blogs, CVEs, conference talks)
• Experience translating research into product features and architecture decisions
• Hands-on, pragmatic, and biased to action

When applying, please include links to published research, blog posts, or conference talks.