Bitcoin Security Engineer

About the role

MicroStrategy is expanding its Bitcoin Security program with a dedicated offensive-security function to test, validate and harden the security of its bitcoin holdings, custody relationships and supporting infrastructure. The Bitcoin Security Engineer is a hands-on, technical individual-contributor role in Tysons Corner, Virginia, reporting to the Director of Bitcoin Security, who sets architecture and strategy while this role probes wallets, hardware, protocols and custodial controls to find weaknesses.

Key responsibilities

• Plan and execute penetration tests of bitcoin wallet architectures (single-sig, multisig, MPC, hardware wallets), targeting key generation, storage, backup and recovery.
• Run adversarial simulations of signing ceremonies, quorum policies and transaction-approval workflows across cold, warm and hot storage tiers.
• Test hardware wallets, HSMs, secure elements and air-gapped devices, including firmware analysis, fault injection, side-channel research, entropy and RNG validation.
• Test Bitcoin nodes, RPC and transaction-layer surfaces, including PSBT handling, fee and RBF logic, transaction malleability and derivation paths.
• Assess smart contracts, tokenization platforms, bridges, oracles and on-chain settlement logic.
• Research the security of custodians, exchanges and asset servicers through technical due diligence and threat modeling.
• Produce reproducible penetration-test reports with proof-of-concept exploits, severity ratings and remediation guidance, and partner with engineering and custody teams to validate fixes.
• Conduct original research, responsibly disclose findings and engage with the bitcoin security community.
• Build custom tooling, fuzzers and test automation to make testing repeatable and continuous.

Required profile

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Cryptography, Information Security, Engineering or a related field; Master's strongly preferred.
• 6+ years of hands-on penetration testing, red-team, vulnerability research or exploit development, with a focus on cryptographic, financial or blockchain systems.
• Experience assessing Bitcoin custody solutions, multisignature and hardware wallets, HSMs and signing ceremonies.
• Ability to write and document original security research and threat analysis.
• Strong written and verbal communication, and the independence of a senior individual contributor.

Required skills

• Proficiency in Python, Rust, C/C++ or Go for building test tooling and exploits.
• Understanding of digital signatures, hashing, key generation, entropy sources and hardware-backed security.
• Preferred certifications such as OSCP, OSEP, OSED, GPEN, GXPN, CRTO, CRTL or CBSP.

Base salary range: $103,900 to $186,900. Eligible employees may also participate in bonus programs, sales incentives, equity awards and benefits.