Security Engineer, Red Team

About the role

• Security Engineer, Red Team | Tesla (Vehicle Software)
• Location: PALO ALTO, California | Req ID: 225532 | Job Type: Full-time
• What to Expect

We’re looking for highly motivated Red Team engineers with an adversarial mindset to help strengthen Tesla’s overall security posture. You'll get hands-on with a wide array of technologies – including autonomous vehicles, humanoid robots, and energy systems – and learn how they interconnect, where they fail, and how to make them stronger.

In this role, you’ll emulate both internal and external threat actors to uncover weaknesses across our most critical products and infrastructure. From designing real-world attack scenarios to conducting deep technical assessments, your work will directly shape how we defend systems at scale.

If you’re passionate about CTFs, vulnerability research, exploit development, or just love “breaking things” to understand them better, this role is for you. Whether it’s writing custom tooling, crafting a successful phishing campaign, or gaining domain admin, you’ll have the freedom to get creative. You’ll be operating in a high-impact, complex environment spanning thousands of systems, services, and endpoints. At Tesla, you’ll use your offensive skills to drive meaningful change and contribute to one of the most ambitious roadmaps in tech today.

What You'll Do

• Breaking everything you touch and helping us fix it
• Conducting penetration tests against Tesla networks, applications and services
• Conduct proactive Red Team exercises to simulate real-world external adversaries and insider threats, identifying vulnerabilities and assessing the effectiveness of organizational cybersecurity defenses
• Performing security assessments on third-party services and software
• Collaborating cross functionally with engineers to develop secure services
• Auditing source code for security vulnerabilities
• Develop/implement automated systems to help spot known security exposures

What You'll Bring

• Experience with secure architecture design
• Excellent communication skills
• Security experience in one or more of: C, C++, PHP, Go,x86, ARM, CAN, cryptography, reverse engineering, wireless networks, common web vulnerabilities with SQLi, XSS, CSRF and exploit development
• Strong penetration testing experience
• Experience auditing code and features

Benefits

Along with competitive pay, as a full-time Tesla employee, you are eligible for the following benefits at day 1 of hire:

• Medical plans > plan options with $0 payroll deduction
• Family-building, fertility, adoption and surrogacy benefits
• Dental (including orthodontic coverage) and vision plans, both have options with a $0 paycheck contribution
• Company Paid (Health Savings Accounts) HSA Contribution when enrolled in the High-Deductible medical plan with HSA
• Healthcare and Dependent Care Flexible Spending Accounts (FSA)
• 401(k) with employer match, Employee Stock Purchase Plans, and other financial benefits
• Company paid Basic Life, AD&D
• Short-term and long-term disability insurance (90 day waiting period)
• Employee Assistance Program
• Sick and Vacation time (Flex time for salary positions, Accrued hours for Hourly positions), and Paid Holidays
• Back-up childcare and parenting support resources
• Voluntary benefits to include: critical illness, hospital indemnity, accident insurance, theft & legal services, and pet insurance
• Weight Loss and Tobacco Cessation Programs
• Tesla Babies program
• Commuter benefits
• Employee discounts and perks program
• Earned Wage Access: Real-time pay access paid daily, subject to eligibility and schedule (applicable for below Sr. Managers levels)

Expected Compensation$160,000 - $276,000/annual salary + cash and stock awards + benefitsPay offered may vary depending on multiple individualized factors, including market location, job-related knowledge, skills, and experience. The total compensation package for this position may also include other elements dependent on the position offered. Details of participation in these benefit plans will be provided if an employee receives an offer of employment.