Lloyds Banking Group
Autonomous Vulnerability Research (Harness Engineering) Lead

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End Date
Friday 14 August 2026
Salary Range
£92,701 - £109,060
We support flexible working – click here for more information on flexible working options
Flexible Working Options
- Hybrid Working
- Job Share
Job Description Summary
Job Description
JOB TITLE: Autonomous Vulnerability Research (Harness Engineering)
SALARY:
- Non-London Locations: £92,701-£119,966
- London: £107,304-£138,864
LOCATION(S): Bristol, Leeds, Edinburgh, Manchester, London
HOURS: Full-time
WORKING PATTERN: Our work style is hybrid, which involves spending at least two days per week, or 40% of our time, at one of our office sites
About this opportunity
We're establishing a new Autonomous Vulnerability Research (Harness Engineering) Team with a strong mission: to build the Group's agentic vulnerability research platform, enabling AI-powered vulnerability discovery, exploit validation, risk prioritisation, and remediation verification at unprecedented scale and speed.
This team will sit at the intersection of offensive security, artificial intelligence, software engineering, and security research. By employing frontier AI models, autonomous agents, testing frameworks, and sophisticated security tooling, the team will create a continuously evolving capability that accelerates vulnerability research, strengthens defensive resilience, and enables the Group to remain ahead of rapidly changing threat landscapes.
As the Autonomous Vulnerability Research (Harness Engineering) Lead, you will define the vision, recruit and grow a multidisciplinary engineering team, and own the development of the Group's AI-powered vulnerability research platform. You will shape how offensive security is delivered in the future by combining autonomous systems with human guidance to create a scalable, resilient, and continually improving security capability.
What you’ll be doing:
- Build and own the Autonomous Vulnerability Research (Harness Engineering) Team, defining strategy, operating model, standards, and roadmap.
- Design and deliver LBG's agentic vulnerability research harness and supporting platform services.
- Develop autonomous workflows for vulnerability discovery, validation, prioritisation, remediation recommendation, and remediation verification.
- Integrate frontier AI models, security tooling, and engineering workflows into a scalable research platform.
- Establish evaluation, observability, governance, and safety controls to ensure credible outcomes.
- Partner with Offensive Security, AI Security, Engineering, and Architecture teams to operationalise research and accelerate remediation.
- Drive innovation in AI-assisted vulnerability research and ensure the capability remains aligned to emerging industry practices.
Reasons to use Rodeo
I’m in my final year doing Economics and I don’t know whether to apply for grad schemes now or do a masters first. What do you think?
Honest answer — it depends on where you want to end up. A lot of top grad schemes (Big 4, civil service, banking) don’t need a masters. Let’s look at the ones you’d be competitive for now, and we can decide if a masters actually adds anything.
Also worth knowing: most autumn 2026 applications are open now. Timing matters more than you think.
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Graduate Consultant — 2026 Scheme
Why you're a good match
StrongYour economics background and your summer at a regional bank line up with what PwC looks for on the consulting scheme. Applications close in four weeks.
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Why you're a good match
You’ve got the grades and the economics background, and your bank internship is exactly the experience this scheme looks for. Apply soon — deadlines close within the month.
Experience fit
Your summer at the bank plus your econometrics coursework map directly to the day-one responsibilities on this scheme — client modelling, market briefings, and deal support.
Only hits
No noise. No "maybe this fits." Just roles with a clear explanation of why they're right — and where to focus when applying.
Why join us?
From building a truly sustainable business to creating a place where people love to work, we need colleagues who are up for the challenge and can match our pace. People who love to push boundaries, make change happen and challenge the status quo. Sound like you?
What we’re looking for:
- Experience leading engineering, security research, offensive security, or platform engineering teams.
- Experience building AI-powered security tooling, agentic systems, or autonomous testing platforms.
- Strong understanding of AI systems, LLMs, agentic architectures, and AI evaluation techniques.
- Deep knowledge of vulnerability research, penetration testing, application security, or exploit development.
- Experience building software platforms, automation frameworks, or large-scale security tooling.
- Strong software engineering skills (Python, Go, Rust, Java, or similar).
- Expertise in cloud-native architectures, distributed systems, APIs, and platform engineering.
- Experience translating modern research into production-ready capabilities.
- Consistent track record of building new teams and capabilities from inception and deliver measurable outcomes.
- Excellent partner management and influencing skills.
And any of these would be great:
- Experience contributing to vulnerability research, security tooling, or open-source projects.
- Cyber security related qualifications or trainings
- MSc or PhD in Computer Science, Cyber Security, Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, or related discipline.
- Knowledge of AI red teaming, LLM security testing, or adversarial machine learning.
- Experience operating within highly regulated environments such as financial services.


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We know that great talent comes from many backgrounds. Whilst this job advert may reference specific years of experience, we recognise that skills are developed in many ways, so if you have relevant, transferable experience, we encourage you to apply.
This is a place for you
We offer reasonable workplace adjustments for colleagues with disabilities, including flexibility in office attendance, location and working patterns. And, as a Disability Confident Leader, we guarantee interviews for a fair and proportionate number of applicants who meet the minimum criteria for the role with a disability, long-term health or neurodivergent condition through the Disability Confident Scheme.
We also offer a wide-ranging benefits package, which includes:
- A generous pension contribution of up to 15%
- An annual performance-related bonus
- Share schemes including free shares
- Benefits you can adapt to your lifestyle, such as discounted shopping
- 30 days’ holiday, with bank holidays on top
- A range of wellbeing initiatives and generous parental leave policies
Like what you hear? Join us!
At Lloyds Banking Group, we're driven by a clear purpose; to help Britain prosper. Across the Group, our colleagues are focused on making a difference to customers, businesses and communities. With us you'll have a key role to play in shaping the financial services of the future, whilst the scale and reach of our Group means you'll have many opportunities to learn, grow and develop.
We keep your data safe. So, we'll only ever ask you to provide confidential or sensitive information once you have formally been invited along to an interview or accepted a verbal offer to join us which is when we run our background checks. We'll always explain what we need and why, with any request coming from a trusted Lloyds Banking Group person.
We're focused on creating a values-led culture and are committed to building a workforce which reflects the diversity of the customers and communities we serve. Together we’re building a truly inclusive workplace where all of our colleagues have the opportunity to make a real difference.
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