Governance, Risk and Compliance Lead

Department: Security & IT

Location: San Francisco

Employment Type: FullTime

About Thinking Machines

The 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.

About the Role

We're looking for a GRC Lead who personally drives our certifications (SOC 2, ISO 27001, FedRAMP and others as we grow) from scoping through audit close, and runs our compliance processes day to day. You'll collect the evidence, write the control documentation, and sit across from the auditor yourself.

You'll work closely with security, legal, safety, and engineering to answer compliance and risk questions directly, using your own technical understanding of how our systems work. Day to day, you'll be managing audits, controls, and risk assessments. Alongside that, you'll be building the roadmap for what this function needs to look like in a year.

What You'll Do

• Own our certification roadmap end to end: scope each certification, build the control set, collect and organize evidence, and represent TML directly to auditors through to close.

• Manage recurring compliance processes on a set cadence: control testing, audit prep and response, risk register maintenance, and policy attestations.

• Answer compliance and risk questions from engineering, security, and product teams directly, by building enough technical fluency across our infrastructure, model deployment, and data handling to do so without escalating every question.

• Track regulatory and framework requirements relevant to an AI company (GDPR, EU AI Act, and similar) and translate them into specific, actionable controls.

• Identify gaps in current compliance coverage as the company adds new products, infrastructure, or jurisdictions, and propose what needs to change before it becomes a blocker.

• Build and maintain the tooling and documentation that make the next audit cycle faster than the last one.

• Plan a multi-quarter roadmap for the GRC function itself, while continuing to personally run the certifications and audits already on the books.

Skills and Qualifications

Minimum qualifications:

• 7+ years related experience across technology and cybersecurity Governance, Risk, and Compliance (GRC), with demonstrated breadth across all three disciplines.

• Experience leading a SOC 2, ISO 27001, FedRAMP or comparable certification from scoping through audit close.

• Hands-on experience collecting audit evidence and writing control documentation.

• Experience managing a recurring compliance process, such as control testing, risk register maintenance, or policy attestations.

• Experience learning new technical domains quickly and translating them for non-technical stakeholders.

Preferred qualifications:

We encourage you to apply even if you don't meet all preferred qualifications.

• Background as a software engineer or in a technical engineering role, now applied to GRC, evidenced by scripts, tools, or automations you've personally built for evidence collection, control testing, or audit workflows.

• Experience translating complex compliance requirements into scalable automation using AI agents and custom built tooling.

• Experience growing a GRC function's capability (new certifications, tooling, or processes) as a company scaled.

You'll Thrive in This Role if

• You want to run the certification yourself, end to end.

• You're the one in the room with the auditor, walking through evidence.

• You can hold this week's deadlines and next year's roadmap at the same time.

Logistics

• Location: This role is based in San Francisco, California.

• Compensation: Depending on background, skills and experience, the expected annual salary range for this position is $225,000 - $350,000.

• Visa 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.

• Benefits: Thinking Machines offers generous health, dental, and vision benefits, unlimited PTO, paid parental leave, and relocation support as needed.

• As set forth in Thinking Machines' Equal Employment Opportunity policy, we do not discriminate on the basis of any protected group status under any applicable law.