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 world
Our work frequently takes us right up to the state of the art in technical innovation, be it reinforcement learning, distributed systems, generative AI, or deployment infrastructure. The defence industry is entering the most exciting phase of the technological development curve. Advances in our field of world are not incremental: Helsing is part of, and often leading, historic leaps forward
In our domain, success is a matter of order-of-magnitude improvements and novel capabilities. This means we take bets, aim high, and focus on big opportunities. Despite being a relatively young company, Helsing has already been selected for multiple significant government contracts
We actively encourage healthy, proactive, and diverse debate internally about what we do and how we choose to do it. Teams and individual engineers are trusted (and encouraged) to practise responsible autonomy and critical thinking, and to focus on outcomes, not conformity. At Helsing you will have a say in how we (and you!) work, the opportunity to engage on what does and doesn’t work, and to take ownership of aspects of our culture that you care deeply about
What we offer
Competitive salary and VSOP options
Relocation support: up to €2,500 and 4 weeks temporary accommodation
Learning: €500/£450 yearly allowance
Health & wellness: gym membership and mental health support (Nilo.health)
Social: regular company events and monthly social allowances
Enhanced parental leave: 22 weeks fully paid for primary caregivers & 6 weeks for secondary caregivers
Family support: 5 days of paid family emergency leave, 100% remote work option during pregnancy and phased return to work
A hands-on onboarding program (affectionately labelled “Infraduction”), in which you will be building tooling and applications to be used across the company. This is your opportunity to learn our tech stack, explore the company, and learn how we get things done - all whilst working with other engineering teams from day one (Specifically for engineering and AI)
These are the core benefits across all locations, there may be additional benefits in certain locations.
Helsing is an equal opportunities employer. We are committed to equal employment opportunity regardless of race, religion, sexual orientation, age, marital status, disability or gender identity. Please do not submit personal data revealing racial or ethnic origin, political opinions, religious or philosophical beliefs, trade union membership, data concerning your health, or data concerning your sexual orientation.
Helsing's Candidate Privacy and Confidentiality Regime can be found here.
