Authenticated identity
Hardware-rooted identities and explicit enrollment lifecycles for humans, devices, services, and agents.
TRUST-BASED NETWORK · COLUMBUS, OHIO
Build the network where trust starts at the connection.
Blacklight is building a trust-based network where your signal belongs to you. People, devices, services, and AI agents earn a way through—strong signal, zero noise.
BASED INColumbus, Ohio
CURRENT STAGEBuilding and validating
BACKED BYDrive Capital
PROVINGIdentity-aware protected paths
WHAT WE BUILD
Identity belongs in the network.
Applications repeatedly ask who is connecting because the network beneath them cannot answer. Blacklight is building infrastructure that makes identity, authorization, and attribution native to the path.
Protected paths
Secure overlays, private discovery, and least-privilege network policy with attributable access.
Auditable control
Rotation, revocation, recovery, evidence, and operational controls built for systems that must be trusted.
Human-machine teams
People set intent, judgment, and accountability. Machines and AI agents extend their reach through verifiable identities and bounded permissions.
FOR TEAMS WHERE TRUST IS OPERATIONAL
Make authority explicit before action begins.
Blacklight begins with organizations that cannot afford anonymous access, impersonated operators, or unauditable machine actions. We are building a shared trust layer for people, devices, services, and agents operating across critical systems.
Mission operators
Trusted communications, attributable access, and controlled human-machine teams designed around explicit authorization.
Technology scouts
Explore where identity-aware protected paths can strengthen mission systems, critical infrastructure, and emerging operational programs.
Developers and integrators
Build connections among networks, devices, services, and agents using authenticated identities, bounded authority, and evidence.
Investors and strategic partners
Follow a focused commercial wedge where anonymous access and unauditable machine actions create real operational risk.
WHY JOIN NOW
The foundational decisions are being made now.
Own the architecture
There is no legacy system to inherit. Your judgment becomes the network, identity model, runbooks, and operational standard.
Prove security claims
We build small, testable systems, document limits honestly, and require evidence that operators and auditors can understand.
Work in human-agent teams
Humans define the mission and remain accountable. AI agents accelerate work within explicit permissions, with their actions reviewed and attributable.
Take care of your family
401(k), potential equity, and 100% paid medical, dental, vision, and life insurance for your entire family.
LEADERSHIP
Build directly with the people shaping Blacklight.
Blacklight is growing its team in Ohio. These roles work directly with company leadership and own consequential technical decisions.
Sean Lane
Chief Executive Officer
Sean is a repeat technology founder with deep experience building applied-AI companies and turning ambitious technical ideas into products at scale.
Doug Thornton, Ph.D.
Chief Technology Officer
Doug holds 55 issued U.S. patents and brings more than two decades of experience building technologies across secure RF communications, cyber, sensing, and energy systems.
Keith Saffles
Chief Product Officer
Keith is a lifelong entrepreneur who has started nine companies over 25 years, with venture-studio experience turning early ideas into products, teams, and durable businesses.
OPEN ROLES / ENGINEERING
Come finish the Internet with us.
Full-time · In-person preferred, hybrid possible for the right person · Applicants must be authorized to work in the United States.
01Network Engineer
Secure overlay networking, private service discovery, and attributable network paths.
Network Engineer
Secure overlay networking, private service discovery, and attributable network paths.
Why this role
You will work directly with the CTO on a network design being made now rather than inherited, which means your judgment shows up in the architecture.
What you will own
- Secure overlay networking and private service discovery across WireGuard, IPv6, DNS, routing, and nftables.
- Least-privilege ingress and egress policy enforced at the edge.
- Attributable protected paths with explicit authorization, expiration, revocation, and evidence.
- Transparent egress controls, network visibility, incident diagnosis, and durable runbooks.
What we need
- Hands-on production experience with IPv6, routing, DNS, service discovery, and firewall policy.
- WireGuard in production; Tailscale, Headscale, or a comparable secure overlay is a strong signal.
- Production Linux and container infrastructure experience.
- Working knowledge of mTLS, certificate enrollment, rotation, revocation, keys, and access control.
02Identity Engineer
Certificate authority, enrollment lifecycles, key custody, and identity infrastructure.
Identity Engineer
Certificate authority, enrollment lifecycles, key custody, and identity infrastructure.
Why this role
You will work directly with the CTO and founding team to shape identity infrastructure without an inherited legacy system or accumulated compromise.
What you will own
- Root and intermediate CA design, offline root custody, issuance policy, rotation, revocation, and recovery.
- Distinct sponsor, human, agent, device, service, and network authorization lifecycles.
- Attributable protected paths with evidence an auditor can read.
- Key custody that keeps long-lived keys outside application and agent reasoning environments.
What we need
- Experience designing and operating a production certificate authority.
- Fluency in mTLS, X.509, certificate enrollment, FIDO/WebAuthn, OAuth 2.0, and OpenID Connect.
- Sound judgment on cryptographic keys, credential custody, access control, and auditability.
- Production Linux and container infrastructure experience.
THE PROCESS
Direct, respectful, and under three weeks.
- 0130-minute conversation with our COO and CTO
- 0260-minute technical conversation with our CTO
- 03Paid half-day design exercise on a real problem
- 04References and offer
APPLY / SECURE UPLOAD
Show us what you have built.
We read every application and reply. Résumés are accepted as PDF, DOCX, or UTF-8 text, limited to 5 MB.
Prefer email? Write to careers@blacklight.network. We cannot sponsor or transfer visas at this time.
Application privacy
Application materials are stored privately and used only by the hiring team. Request access or deletion at careers@blacklight.network.