AI Research Engineer

We're looking for an AI Research Engineer to build the intelligence layer behind Willow. This is a role for someone who lives at the intersection of research and production – you'll design and ship ML systems that detect anomalies, classify agent behavior, and keep AI agents secure at enterprise scale.

What You'll Do

• Build AI-powered detection systems – design and implement models that identify risky agent behavior, policy violations, and anomalous patterns in real-time.
• Research and develop techniques for understanding AI agent behavior – what they're doing, why, and whether it's safe.
• Work on LLM security challenges – prompt injection detection, output validation, and guardrail systems.
• Ship production ML systems – not just notebooks. You'll own the full lifecycle from research to deployment.
• Stay current with the rapidly evolving AI security landscape and bring insights back to the team.
• Collaborate with product and security teams to translate research into features customers can use.

What We're Looking For

• 3+ years of experience in ML/AI engineering, with hands-on production experience.
• Strong fundamentals in machine learning – you understand the math, not just the APIs.
• Experience with LLMs and modern AI systems – fine-tuning, embeddings, prompt engineering, or related areas.
• Solid software engineering skills – you write production-quality code, not just research prototypes.
• Familiarity with ML infrastructure – model serving, monitoring, and iteration at scale.
• Curiosity about AI security and safety – you're excited about the unique challenges of governing AI agents.
• Self-directed and comfortable with ambiguity – this is a new problem space, and you'll help define it.

Why Willow

You'll build the intelligence layer for the AI era.

AI adoption is accelerating faster than any technology shift before it. Soon, every employee will delegate thousands of tasks to AI agents – running in parallel, accessing sensitive data, performing actions across internal systems and SaaS tools. Today, this layer has zero governance.

Willow is building the control layer for AI agents: zero-trust authentication, app-aware permissions, centralized audit trails. We enable adoption without compromising security. Every agent, every tool, one control plane.

We're already in production with forward thinking enterprises. The market is moving fast – and we're positioned to lead it.

What else:

• Founding impact: You're not joining a team – you're building it. Early equity, real ownership, direct influence on product and company direction.
• Ship to real customers: No theoretical exercises. Enterprises are using what we build today.
• Exceptional team: Small, senior, low-ego. Everyone here can build.
• The right moment: Strong traction, active fundraising, and a market that's exploding. This is the window.