Senior Security Engineer

About the role

Full time · Mostly remote, with at least six months a year in Cyprus · Reports to the CTO

Mathspace builds software that helps students learn mathematics, and schools trust us with their students' data. We are hiring a Senior Security Engineer to lead hands-on security work across our product, cloud and company systems. Our CTO is accountable for security; you will drive the work day to day as an individual contributor, with support from engineering and specialist partners when needed.

We want someone who works AI-first, building automation that lets a small team defend a growing company, and who can help us take practical steps toward SOC 2 and ISO 27001. We do not need certification today, but we want to be ready when the time comes.

Our engineering team is fully remote, with engineers in Sydney, the Philippines and Europe. Our headquarters is in Cyprus, where this role is hired from. You can work from home or anywhere for part of the year, and at least six months a year from our coworking spaces in Larnaca and/or Limassol.

Why Mathspace

We are mission-driven and reliably profitable, and we still move fast with a start-up culture. We use AI as fully as we can, across engineering and the rest of the company.

Our stack

AWS across Australia and the US (ECS Fargate, Lambda, managed databases, Redis), Cloudflare at the edge, and Python, Django, FastAPI, TypeScript and React, with AI features built on external model providers. We use Terraform, GitHub, CloudWatch, Prometheus and Sentry. Protecting student data across applications, regions and providers is central to the work.

What you'll work on

• Find and fix what matters most. Map our attack surface and sensitive data, prioritise real risks, and work with engineers to fix them in code, cloud configuration and the build pipeline.
• Scale our defence with AI. Build AI-assisted workflows for triage, code review, advisory analysis and evidence collection, with sensible controls on data, permissions and prompt injection.
• Strengthen identity and devices. Tighten SSO, MFA, privileged access, onboarding and offboarding, and improve device management coverage.
• Detect and respond. Improve monitoring where it is thin, respond to emerging threats, and build the playbooks for handling incidents.
• Move us toward SOC 2 and ISO 27001. Run a gap assessment, build a practical roadmap, and automate evidence so compliance becomes a by-product of good practice. The CTO and leadership own the decisions, and we bring in specialists where it helps.
• Support customer trust. Help answer school and district security questionnaires, and keep our security claims accurate.

Requirements

What we're looking for

• Solid experience in cloud and web application security, ideally with AWS and Python. You can read unfamiliar code, reason about permissions and write automation.
• An AI-native way of working. You use AI tools every day, know where to trust them and where not, and understand risks like prompt injection and data leakage.
• Good judgement about what is urgent and what can wait, and clear communication with engineers and leadership.
• Comfort working independently in a small team.
• The ability to work at least six months a year from Cyprus.

Nice to have: experience with SOC 2, ISO 27001 or a similar framework; device management, detection or incident response; or having been the first security hire somewhere.

You do not need to tick every box. If most of this sounds like you, we would like to hear from you. We assess demonstrated ability, not a particular degree, certification or previous employer.

Incident availability

For the first six months, we would like you to be reachable at short notice for urgent security issues. After that, you will join an on-call rotation that you help set up.

What success looks like

In your first 90 days, you have a clear picture of our security baseline, a priority plan agreed with the CTO, early fixes in place on the biggest risks, and a SOC 2 and ISO 27001 gap assessment underway. Over the first year, our biggest exposures shrink, routine security work is automated, and we are on a credible path to audit readiness.

How to apply

Send your CV and two brief examples: a security problem you investigated and resolved, and a tool, process or AI-assisted workflow you built that made security work more effective. Tell us your reasoning and the result. Sanitised descriptions are welcome; please protect previous employers' confidential information.

Benefits

Why Join Mathspace?

• Mission-driven work: Help reimagine math education for students and teachers everywhere.
• Meaningful scale: Your work will reach hundreds of thousands of learners across the globe.
• Small team, big impact: We’re a lean, high-trust team where individual ownership matters.
• Flexible work: We support remote work with flexibility to work while travelling
• Support for growth: We offer a yearly stipend for training and professional development.
• Do good beyond product: We partner with pledge1percent.org and offer 2.5 paid volunteer days annually.
• Competitive salary and equipment: Including a MacBook Pro and any peripherals you need to do your best work.