{"id":1103723,"url":"https://alion.io/job/thinking-machines-lab-software-engineer-sandboxing-2","title":"Software Engineer, Sandboxing","company":{"id":14382,"name":"Thinking Machines Lab","domain":"thinkingmachines.ai","url":"https://alion.io/company/thinking-machines-lab","size_band":"501-1000","is_staffing_agency":false,"employer_type":"direct","is_intermediary":false,"listed_via":null,"ats_vendor":"Ashby","truth_index":{"grade":"B","score":76,"open_postings":21,"ghost_share":0,"stale_share":0.952,"repost_share":0,"time_to_fill_p50_days":29,"computed_at":"2026-11-08T05:47:12Z"}},"role":"Backend","role_family":"Backend","seniority":null,"employment_type":"full_time","work_mode":"on_site","remote_scope":null,"remote_scope_basis":null,"remote_working_hours":null,"hiring_geo_confidence":"structured","locations":["San Francisco, United States","New York, United States"],"countries":["US"],"hiring_countries":[],"hiring_countries_total":0,"salary":{"min":300000,"max":400000,"currency":"USD","period":"year","gross":null,"usd_annual":400000},"salary_estimate":null,"experience_years_min":null,"visa_sponsorship":true,"relocation_package":true,"has_equity":false,"technologies":[{"name":"Linux","optional":false},{"name":"Python","optional":false},{"name":"Rust","optional":false},{"name":"AI Agents","optional":true},{"name":"Kubernetes","optional":true},{"name":"Threat Modeling","optional":true}],"status":"live","first_seen_at":"2026-09-22T01:25:07Z","employer_posted_date":"2026-09-22","last_verified_at":"2026-11-08T08:28:16Z","board_verified":true,"closed_at":null,"days_open":47,"trust":{"level":"ok","repost_count":null,"flags":[],"days_open":47},"description":"About Thinking Machines\nThe mission of Thinking Machines is to build AI that extends human will and judgment. We are training frontier models with Inkling, developing Tinker to let people make models their own, and crafting interfaces that broaden human-AI communication. We believe the future worth building is human, and we're hiring people who want to build it.\nAbout the Role\nOur models and agents increasingly need to run code, use tools, and take actions in the world - safely, reliably, and at scale. The Core Services team builds the sandboxing infrastructure that makes this possible: the isolated execution environments where models write and run code, browse, and interact with tools, both for our researchers during training and for external users building on Tinker.\nWe're hiring a software engineer to help design, build, and operate this sandboxing platform. You'll work on the systems that isolate and constrain untrusted, model-generated code, and that scale to support thousands of concurrent executions across the company. This is foundational infrastructure: every research experiment and every product surface that lets a model take action depends on it being fast, secure, and dependable.\nWhat You'll Do\nDesign, build, and operate sandboxed execution environments for running untrusted, model-generated code and tool calls at scale.\n\nImprove isolation boundaries using technologies such as containers, microVMs, or gVisor-style kernels, balancing security against startup latency and throughput.\n\nBuild the scheduling, resource-management, and lifecycle systems that provision, reuse, and tear down sandboxes efficiently under heavy concurrent load.\n\nPartner with researchers and Tinker's product team to expose sandboxing primitives that are simple to use and hard to misuse.\n\nInstrument sandboxes for observability and abuse detection, and respond to novel escape or exploitation attempts as they're discovered.\n\nOwn reliability and performance of the sandboxing platform end-to-end, from API design down to the underlying virtualization layer.\n\nSkills and Qualifications\nMinimum qualifications\nBachelor's degree or equivalent experience in computer science, engineering, or similar.\n\nProficiency in at least one backend language (we use Python or Rust).\n\nExperience building or operating isolation or virtualization technology, such as containers, microVMs (e.g. Firecracker, Cloud Hypervisor), or sandboxed runtimes (e.g. gVisor, Kata Containers).\n\nSolid grounding in Linux internals relevant to isolation: namespaces, cgroups, seccomp, capabilities, and networking.\n\nComfort operating across the stack and owning projects end-to-end.\n\nThrive in a highly collaborative environment involving many, different cross-functional partners and subject matter experts.\n\nPreferred qualifications\nExperience securing systems that execute untrusted or adversarial code, including threat modeling and hardening against sandbox escapes.\n\nFamiliarity with running large-scale, multi-tenant infrastructure on Kubernetes or similar orchestration systems.\n\nExperience with performance-sensitive systems programming and reducing cold-start latency for ephemeral compute.\n\nTrack record of contributing to open-source infrastructure or security tooling.\n\nInterest in how AI agents use tools and code execution, and how that shapes the design of safe execution environments.\n\nLogistics\nLocation: This role is based in San Francisco, CA.\n\nCompensation: Depending on background, skills and experience, the expected annual salary range for this position is $300,000 - $400,000 USD.\n\nVisa sponsorship: We sponsor visas. While we can't guarantee success for every candidate or role, if you're the right fit, we're committed to working through the visa process together.\n\nBenefits: Thinking Machines offers generous health, dental, and vision benefits, unlimited PTO, paid parental leave, and relocation support as needed.","description_format":"text","description_chars":3921,"description_truncated":false,"requirements":{"experience_years_min":null,"management_years_min":null,"team_size_min":null,"manages_managers":false,"education":null,"security_clearance":false,"languages":[]},"benefits":["Parental leave","Unlimited PTO"],"hiring_locations":[],"hiring_excludes":[],"relocation_offered":true,"industries":["Multimodal AI","Foundation Models","AI Research Labs","AI Development Tools"],"lifecycle":[{"event":"open","at":"2026-09-22T03:30:41Z"}],"visa":[{"country":"US","licensed_sponsor":true,"adverts_offering_sponsorship_24m":57,"sanctioned_now":false,"evidence":"H-1B filings in 12 months: 30","filings_12m":30,"filings_prev_12m":8,"green_card_filings_12m":0,"median_offered_wage_usd":192500,"route":null,"cap_exempt":false,"checked_at":"2026-11-07T07:57:00+00:00","sources":["US Department of Labor: LCA disclosure data (H-1B, H-1B1, E-3)","Alion: sponsorship offered in the employer's own job adverts (24 months)"],"filings_for_role_12m":7}],"liveness":{"score":20,"band":"cold","label":"Long shot","p_open":1,"p_active":0.433,"p_room":0.45,"age_days":47,"expected_fill_days":29,"reasons":["conf:1","stale_co","velocity","win:tail"],"computed_at":"2026-11-08T05:47:12Z"},"pay":{"stated_usd_annual":400000,"is_top_pay":true},"html_url":"https://alion.io/job/thinking-machines-lab-software-engineer-sandboxing-2","json_url":"https://alion.io/job/thinking-machines-lab-software-engineer-sandboxing-2.json","meta":{"generated_at":"2026-11-08T10:28:17Z","cache_seconds":300,"methodology":"https://alion.io/methodology","terms":"https://alion.io/terms","contact":"https://alion.io/contact","api":"https://alion.io/developers","about":"Alion is a live layer of people, companies and AI agents: who they are, whether they are real and active right now, what they do and how to work with them, readable by people and by agents and paid per call.","catalog":"https://alion.io/catalog.json","usage":{"tier":"crawler_verified","counted_by":"address","units_charged":1,"used_today":22561,"day_limit":null,"remaining_today":null,"minute_limit":300,"resets_at":"2026-11-09T00:00:00Z"}},"offers":[{"id":"company.slices","title":"One company in depth, by slice","status":"live","price":{"credits":0.02,"usd":0.002,"plus_per_slice":{"credits":0.05,"usd":0.005}},"unit":"per company, plus each slice with data","note":"the employer in depth","call":{"mcp_tool":"get_company","arguments":{"id":14382},"rest":"https://alion.io/mcp/rest/get_company?id=14382"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=company.slices&for=job%2Fthinking-machines-lab-software-engineer-sandboxing-2"},{"id":"market.stats","title":"A market slice: pay, demand and time to fill","status":"live","price":{"credits":1,"usd":0.1},"unit":"per slice","note":"pay, demand and time to fill for this role and place","call":{"mcp_tool":"market_stats"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=market.stats&for=job%2Fthinking-machines-lab-software-engineer-sandboxing-2"},{"id":"job.search","title":"Open jobs by role, technology, place, pay and visa","status":"live","price":{"credits":0.02,"usd":0.002},"unit":"per posting in a list","note":"similar open postings","call":{"mcp_tool":"search_jobs"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=job.search&for=job%2Fthinking-machines-lab-software-engineer-sandboxing-2"},{"id":"company.verify","title":"Is this company real and active right now","status":"pilot","price":null,"unit":"per company","request":{"url":"https://alion.io/catalog/request","method":"POST","body":"{\"offer\": \"company.verify\", \"for\": \"job/thinking-machines-lab-software-engineer-sandboxing-2\", \"note\": \"what you need it for\"}"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=company.verify&for=job%2Fthinking-machines-lab-software-engineer-sandboxing-2"}],"agent":{"mcp":"https://alion.io/mcp/jobs","mcp_open":"https://alion.io/mcp/open","next":[{"tool":"get_job","arguments":{"id":1103723}},{"tool":"search_jobs","arguments":{"company":"thinkingmachines.ai","detail":"compact"}},{"tool":"match_people","arguments":{"job_id":1103723},"note":"people open to offers who fit this vacancy"}],"note":"The same data through MCP tools: https://alion.io/mcp/open needs no sign-in (compact searches, postings, people); https://alion.io/mcp with an Alion account has everything. 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