CybersecurityDirect Ashby career site

SL5 Standards Lead

Pay: $200,000 – $240,000 per year
Location: San Francisco, CA · On-site
Job type: Full-time
Level: Director
Listed: 22 days ago

Skills & highlights for this role

NIST SP 800-53
ICD 705
NIST SP 800-161
technical standards development

Also useful

IL6
FedRAMP High
CNSSI 1253

Stated benefits & perks

Dental
Vision
401k match

The role

Lead the SL5 standard end to end. It's a NIST SP 800-53 overlay, with physical requirements from ICD 705, supply chain from NIST 800-161, across five streams: network, physical, machine, personnel, supply chain. The current version is a v0.1 draft with open questions and a roadmap of mappings (DoD IL6, FedRAMP High, CNSSI 1253). Keep it technically coherent and drive it from draft to something labs actually adopt.

What you'd do

Lead versioning, control updates, and cross-stream coherence
Find and fix flaws in the current version and drive its open questions to resolution
Extend the mappings to IL6, FedRAMP High, and CNSSI 1253, plus the AI-datacenter and AI-SCIF overlays to ICD 705
Gather lab, datacenter operator, chip provider, and government feedback, and translate their constraints back into the standard
Make the required-vs-recommended-vs-deferred calls where security and adoptability conflict
Set the writing and editorial bar for a document read by both deeply technical and senior policy audiences

You'd fit if you

Have authored, owned, or led a technical standard, control framework, or comparable cross-cutting spec, ideally one real organizations had to implement
Have deep security experience in more than one of: systems/network, physical/personnel, hardware/ML infra, government security frameworks
Are fluent with NIST 800-53 / ICD 705 / IL6-class frameworks
Write clearly and precisely for technical and policy readers
Want your work to set the bar the whole industry builds to

Bonus

Wrote or operated under classified or high-sensitivity frameworks
Hold a clearance or are clearance-eligible
Have standing relationships across frontier labs, the IC, or datacenter/chip supply chains
Owned a standard that had to be both secure and adoptable under real cost and speed pressure

Pay and benefits

Bay Area, in-person. Base salary $200,000-240,000. We may pay exceptional or highly experienced hires more. Full benefits: healthcare, dental, vision, 401k match, and more.

About Security Level 5

Security Level 5 is a Bay Area AI security nonprofit working with AI labs and US intelligence agencies to defend frontier models from priority nation-state-level threats. We're a small technical team, we move fast, and we're growing quickly this year.

The mission

Plausibly the most difficult, urgent, and interesting challenge in AI security engineering this decade (for humans, at least): designing the first datacenter purpose-built to Security Level 5, the standard for defending frontier labs against attackers with nation-state resources and billion-dollar budgets. We wrote v0.1 with input from frontier-lab CISOs and US security and intelligence officials.

Now we're designing SL5 architectures for real AI workloads and standing up the reference stack to guide lab buildouts. First SL5 components this year, at-scale build in 2027. The stack has to hold against nation-states, keep researchers productive, stay within what labs can pay, and ship in 2-3 years.

Read the original posting

From Security Level 5's careers page, first listed on Rolev.ai on October 17, 2026. Rolev.ai is not the employer.

How Rolev.ai helps with this application

Rolev.ai is a job search and application tool for US job seekers. For this SL5 Standards Lead role at Security Level 5, it shows how your resume fits, tailors your resume to the posting, and prepares the application for you to review.

See how you fit
Openings from employer career sites are ranked against your whole resume—and searchable inside Claude, ChatGPT, and Cursor via Rolev.ai MCP.
Tailor without inventing
Every change to your resume is checked against your original. New experience goes in only with your yes—zero fabricated claims.
Draft the full kit
Tailored and Full Match resumes, role-specific cover letters, and answers to employer screening questions are prepared in seconds.
1-Click Extension Autofill
The Chrome extension fills the employer's Greenhouse, Workday, Lever, or Ashby form in 1 click. You review it and press Submit.

Start free with 5 tailored applications a month Chrome extension For AI assistants Pricing How Rolev.ai compares Application guides

Similar roles

All Information Security Manager jobs

Common questions

What is the salary for the SL5 Standards Lead role at Security Level 5?

The SL5 Standards Lead posting at Security Level 5 states compensation of $200,000 – $240,000 per year. It is listed as a full-time position. Final pay may depend on location, experience, and interview evaluation on Security Level 5's official career site.

Where is the SL5 Standards Lead job at Security Level 5 located?

This SL5 Standards Lead position at Security Level 5 is located in San Francisco, CA (On-site). Always check Security Level 5's application page for specific state eligibility or relocation policies.

What qualifications are required for SL5 Standards Lead at Security Level 5?

For the SL5 Standards Lead role, Security Level 5 highlights experience with NIST SP 800-53, ICD 705, NIST SP 800-161, technical standards development. Rolev.ai can score your existing resume against these requirements and show any skill gaps before you apply.

How do I apply for the SL5 Standards Lead position at Security Level 5?

This listing links directly to Security Level 5's Ashby application page. You can apply directly on Security Level 5's site, or use Rolev.ai to check your resume fit, generate a zero-hallucination tailored resume and cover letter for this posting, and autofill the Ashby application form in 1 click with the Rolev.ai Chrome extension. You always review the form and press Submit yourself.

Tailor resume & apply Company site