Senior Security Engineer, Digital Assets

About the role

The Senior Engineer, Crypto Security at Charles Schwab will be responsible for designing, building, and securing Schwab's institutional-grade digital asset custody platforms. This role focuses on crypto-native security capabilities and digital asset development, including secure wallet technologies, key management, cryptographic protocols, smart contract security, tokenization, custody policy enforcement, and advanced blockchain security solutions.

Responsibilities

• Contribute to the design and implementation of secure wallet solutions, including Multi-Party Computation (MPC), Hardware Security Modules (HSMs), cold, warm, and hot wallet architectures, custodial vs. non-custodial control models, and distributed key generation and signing workflows.
• Ensure secure handling of key lifecycle events—generation, storage, usage, rotation, and recovery.
• Work closely with Custody Leads to validate cryptographic assumptions and architectural choices.
• Design and implement security-critical components leveraging modern cryptographic protocols, DeFi application security principles, cross-chain and blockchain interoperability patterns, and evaluate and integrate advanced technologies like Zero-Knowledge Proofs (ZKPs), Decentralized Identity (DID) frameworks, and Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) architectures (as applicable).
• Ensure cryptographic designs are auditable, explainable, and production-ready.
• Experience with Web3 Security tooling with Slither, Mythril, Foundry Fuzzing, and common cryptography implementation languages such as C, C++, Rust, Go.
• Build and configure programmable custody policy engines, including multi-approval and quorum-based workflows, spending thresholds and velocity limits, role-based access controls, and segregation of duties.
• Translate risk, compliance, and business rules into deterministic, secure technical policies.
• Ensure policies are observable, enforceable, and version-controlled.
• Collaborate with security auditors, evaluate blockchain architectures, protocols, and ecosystems for enterprise suitability, and design and review smart-contract frameworks and tokenization approaches, including tokenized securities, stablecoins, and asset representations using ERC-20, ERC-721, ERC-1155, and related standards.
• Evaluate and assess emerging token lifecycle, settlement, and secure on-chain governance models for applicability to Schwab's business.
• Implement, and audit secure, cross-chain bridges and interoperability protocols (e.g., lock-and-mint, burn-and-mint, atomic swaps) to facilitate asset and data movement between networks.
• Leverage GenAI and agentic AI tools to accelerate threat modeling, cryptographic design reviews, documentation and validation, and apply AI to enhance speed and rigor without compromising correctness or security.

Requirements

• 7+ years of software engineering experience with a strong focus on security or cryptography.
• Hands-on experience with secure wallet technologies and key management systems (MPC, HSMs, or equivalent).
• Strong understanding of cryptographic primitives, secure protocol design, and distributed systems.
• Experience building systems where security failures have material impact.
• Able to collaborate effectively across engineering, security, and risk teams.
• Strongly preferred: experience with crypto custody platforms, digital assets, or blockchain infrastructure; hands-on work with ZKPs, DID frameworks, DeFi protocols, or CBDC-related systems; experience implementing policy-driven transaction controls in high-risk systems; strong security intuition and ability to reason through complex threat models; experience using AI tools to support secure software development.

Qualifications

• Required: 7+ years of software engineering experience with a strong focus on security or cryptography.
• Hands-on experience with secure wallet technologies and key management systems (MPC, HSMs, or equivalent).
• Strong understanding of cryptographic primitives, secure protocol design, and distributed systems.
• Experience building systems where security failures have material impact.
• Able to collaborate effectively across engineering, security, and risk teams.
• Strongly preferred: experience with crypto custody platforms, digital assets, or blockchain infrastructure; hands-on work with ZKPs, DID frameworks, DeFi protocols, or CBDC-related systems; experience implementing policy-driven transaction controls in high-risk systems; strong security intuition and ability to reason through complex threat models; experience using AI tools to support secure software development.

Skills

• Experience with crypto custody platforms, digital assets, or blockchain infrastructure.
• Hands-on work with ZKPs, DID frameworks, DeFi protocols, or CBDC-related systems.
• Experience implementing policy-driven transaction controls in high-risk systems.
• Strong security intuition and ability to reason through complex threat models.
• Experience using AI tools to support secure software development.

Benefits

This role is eligible for bonus or incentive opportunities, in addition to the salary range provided.