Application Security Researcher

Position description

As an Application Security Researcher, you play a central role in realizing our ambition to provide the best SAST solution on the market. Like us, you believe that application security is not the responsibility of a few experts and that developers can have the biggest impact when they get the right information at the right time.

As a member of the Code Security team, you decide what security issues the product should detect and how they materialize in various language ecosystems. You work closely with static analysis developers to specify, clarify, communicate, and validate all functional aspects of the security rules.

You will be a trusted adviser of developers, able to provide meaningful code samples and specifications. This is a great way to have a direct impact on the product and, ultimately, on how millions of developers produce code.

What you will do

• Build expertise on various language ecosystems in order to identify the most common vulnerabilities that developers are facing.
• Investigate how these vulnerabilities materialize within the code.
• Define the static analysis rules that will detect these vulnerabilities.
• Interact with our user community to clarify this invaluable feedback and turn it into actions/decisions, such as refining too noisy vulnerability detection rules or improving taint-analyzer vulnerability reports with contextual information.
• Drive innovation to make our SAST engine even better.
• Study competitors and provide gap analyses.

Experience and qualifications

Technical skills

• Master application security basics, including knowing the most common vulnerabilities, how to locate vulnerabilities in the code, and how to exploit basic vulnerabilities. To be successful, you should be interested in or involved with the application security ecosystem.
• Have a developer mindset: experience with the coding lifecycle, ability to produce secure code, to do code reviews, and to jump into an unknown codebase, language, and framework.
• Master at least one programming language along with its development environment to understand end-users’ context and expectations.

Soft skills

• Strong communication skills, i.e. both listening and expressing constructive ideas.
• High level of autonomy and still accepting help and feedback from team members.
• Ability to work and communicate with non-security experts.

Nice to have

• Understanding of static analysis mechanisms.
• Ability to challenge rule implementation.

Additional comments

This role is based in Bochum. We are unable to consider candidates unwilling to be in Bochum, but we are willing to relocate the right candidate.

We value diversity, equity, and inclusion

At Sonar, we believe that our diversity is our strength. We are a global company that values and respects different backgrounds, perspectives, and cultures. We are committed to fostering a diverse and inclusive work environment where everyone feels valued and empowered to contribute their best. We are proud to be an equal opportunity employer and welcome all qualified applicants, regardless of race, color, religion, gender, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, national origin, genetics, disability, age, or veteran status.

If you need any accommodation, please reach out to us at

All offers of employment at Sonar are contingent upon the results of a comprehensive background check and reference verification conducted before the start date.

We do not currently support visa candidates in the US.

Applications that are submitted through agencies or third party recruiters will not be considered.