Junior Security Engineer

Who we are

Helsing is a defence AI company. Our mission is to protect our democracies. We aim to achieve technological leadership, so that open societies can continue to make sovereign decisions and control their ethical standards. As democracies, we believe we have a special responsibility to be thoughtful about the development and deployment of powerful technologies like AI. We take this responsibility seriously. We are an ambitious and committed team of engineers, AI specialists and customer-facing programme managers. We are looking for mission-driven people to join our European teams – and apply their skills to solve the most complex and impactful problems. We embrace an open and transparent culture that welcomes healthy debates on the use of technology in defence, its benefits, and its ethical implications. The role

Security Engineering at Helsing sits at the intersection of deep technical expertise, adversarial thinking, and real-world impact. As a Junior Security Engineer, you will join a team that works across the full breadth of our technology - from cloud infrastructure to applications, identity systems, and products - identifying and reducing the security risks that matter most.

This is a role for someone early in their career who has the engineering foundations, security instincts, and curiosity to grow into a highly capable security engineer. You will be paired with an experienced senior engineer as a dedicated mentor, work on real problems from day one, and be supported with a structured development path. We are not looking for someone who already has all the answers - we are looking for someone who builds things, thinks adversarially, and learns fast.

The day-to-day

Work alongside senior security engineers on threat modelling and security reviews - learning to identify architectural risks, trust boundary issues, and failure modes

Build and improve security tooling and automation - writing code that reduces manual security work and embeds secure-by-default practices into engineering workflows

Contribute to security testing across our systems and products, including hands-on technical testing under supervision

Own well-defined security workstreams, progressively taking on more scope and autonomy as your skills develop

Observe and learn from security incidents through ride-alongs with experienced engineers, progressing to hands-on incident response roles as you develop and gain the required access

Help maintain and improve our security documentation, runbooks, and internal guidance

Support assurance activities such as audits and certifications alongside experienced team members

You should apply if you

You have built non-trivial software - projects that demonstrate genuine engineering ability, not just framework usage (e.g. security tools, automation pipelines, network utilities, infrastructure-as-code, compilers, or embedded systems) You can reason about how systems work below the abstraction layer you operate at - memory, networking, operating systems, or hardware You have a track record of self-directed security interest - CTF participation, vulnerability research, protocol analysis, bug bounties, or open-source security contributions You have shown initiative and ownership in student or early-career contexts - leading a project, driving a decision, or building something beyond what was asked of you

Nice to Have

Participation in a selective security programme - examples include CyberFirst, GCHQ summer schemes, NCSC-sponsored bursaries, BSI programmes, CSAW, military technical roles, competitive research placements, or funded PhD positions Hands-on offensive security experience through CTFs, personal projects, or structured programmes Familiarity with cloud platforms (AWS, GCP, or Azure) and infrastructure-as-code concepts Exposure to AI or machine learning systems and an interest in their security implications Contributions to open-source security tools or research Experience with reverse engineering, binary analysis, or low-level systems programming

Join Helsing and work with world-leading experts in their fields

This role includes a structured development programme. Every junior hire is paired with a senior security engineer as a dedicated mentor, with clear milestones at 3, 6, and 12 months. You will work on real security problems from your first week - supervised and reviewed, but genuine. Details of the mentorship and development framework are available on request.

Helsing’s work is important. You’ll be directly contributing to the protection of democratic countries while balancing both ethical and geopolitical concerns

The work is unique. We operate in a domain that has highly unusual technical requirements and constraints, and where robustness, safety, and ethical considerations are vital. You will face unique Engineering and AI challenges that make a meaningful impact in the worl