Security Research Fellow

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At Sentient, we’re building AI products, bringing together AI research leaders, and designing an incentive system for AI developers to make open-source AI win. Our platform is designed to democratize AI development, empowering communities to collaboratively create, monetize, and build on top of AI models, agents, and data in a truly open and accessible ecosystem, ensuring fair value distribution to AI builders.

Sentient is backed by leading Silicon Valley venture capital firms including Founders’ Fund and founded by top AI academics and protocol founders.

We are seeking a Security Research Fellow to join Sentient Labs and work at the intersection of cryptography, hardware security, and open-source AI. This part‑time or full‑time role is designed for students (undergraduate, master’s, or PhD) who are excited to dive deep into Trusted Execution Environments (TEEs) and contribute to the Sentient Enclaves Framework
—our TEE stack for confidential inference and trustless AI evaluation.

As a fellow, you will gain hands‑on engineering experience, collaborate on real‑world evaluations of TEEs, and become a subject‑matter expert through original research and publications in the area of confidential computing.

• Help engineer core components of the Sentient Enclaves Framework (SEF)

• Run benchmarking and evaluation pipelines to measure TEE performance and compare with alternative TEE offerings
• Collaborate with Sentient researchers to design trustless evaluation protocols for open‑source AI models and contributions.
• Publish academic papers and technical reports in the field of TEEs, confidential AI, and secure AI governance.
• Contribute to Sentient’s open‑source ecosystem, documenting findings and presenting results to the broader community.

• Enrolled in a Bachelor’s, Master’s, or PhD program in Computer Science, Mathematics, Electrical/Computer Engineering, Cryptography, or related fields.
• Strong academic background in systems, security, or hardware (e.g., operating systems, computer architecture, or applied cryptography).
• Working knowledge of Rust (preferred) or systems programming languages such as C/C++.
• Familiarity with at least one TEE technology (Intel SGX, AMD SEV‑SNP, Intel TDX, AWS Nitro, NVIDIA GPU‑TEE).
• Prior research experience or publications in security, cryptography, or confidential computing is a plus.
• Self‑driven, able to balance coursework with meaningful contributions to a pioneering open‑source AI project.

• Appreciate and pursue deep expertise
• Embrace extreme ownership and bias for action
• Want to take risks and act upon ambition with integrity and empathy
• Pursue relentless innovation and experimentation
• Invest in personal growth and team collaboration

• Competitive salary
• Top‑of‑the‑line engineers and technology
• Opportunity to shape the direction of a pioneering open AI platform

Individuals seeking employment at Sentient are considered without regards to race, color, religion, national origin, age, sex, marital status, ancestry, physical or mental disability, veteran status, gender identity, or sexual orientation.