PhD Intern, Security Engineer (2027)

Title: PhD Intern, Security Engineer (2027) Location: San Francisco, CA • New York, NY

The mission of the Figma Security team is to help Figmates ship the most secure and safe product to our users. As a PhD Intern, Security Engineer you will work on an impactful project to improve the security of Figma’s product, platform, or infrastructure, working closely with a mentor and teammates while applying your research background to drive real-world impact. You will partner closely with teams across the company, focus on systemic security improvements and risk reduction, and participate in operational security responsibilities like security reviews, consulting, vulnerability triage, and security incident response.

This is a 12 or 16-week internship role that can be held from one of our US hubs (San Francisco or New York) starting in May or June of 2027.

What you’ll do at Figma:

• Perform technical security assessments, code audits, and design reviews
• Design and develop solutions to prevent or mitigate security vulnerabilities across Figma’s products, services and infrastructure
• Lead and support security investigations, developing the datasets, tooling, and analysis that help us scope incidents, understand root cause, and reduce time to detect and respond
• Translate threat intelligence into action, operationalizing intel on relevant threat actors and techniques to prioritize detection coverage, harden high-risk surfaces, and guide security strategy

We’d love to hear from you if you have:

• Current enrollment as a 4th or 5th year senior PhD student in a Computer Science program with a focus in Security or a related field
• Proficiency in at least one general-purpose coding language
• A track record in applying security techniques to projects in academia or industry, with excellent domain knowledge in at least one relevant area such as AI Safety/Evaluation, Useable security, Anti-abuse, Anti-fraud, detection and response or similar
• Strong knowledge of statistical methods and/or experimental design
• Experience solving sophisticated problems and comparing alternative solutions, trade-offs, and diverse points of view to determine a path forward

While it’s not required, it’s an added plus if you also have:

• Related industry experience via a past internship or full-time role
• Proven expertise in security through publications at top security conferences like USENIX Security, NDSS, CCS, IEEE S&P
• Strong communication and interpersonal skills, with demonstrated experience collaborating across functions
• Experience using AI tools (e.g., GitHub Copilot, ChatGPT, Claude) to write, debug, and optimize code
• A good understanding of at least two of Linux/Unix/Mac-based systems security, AWS security, Cloud SaaS Security, applied cryptography, anti-abuse, or web application security

At Figma, one of our values is Grow as you go. We believe in hiring smart, curious people who are excited to learn and develop their skills. If you’re excited about this role but your past experience doesn’t align perfectly with the points outlined in the job description, we encourage you to apply anyways. You may be just the right candidate for this or other roles.