Application Security, Specialist

Vanguard•Fort Worth, TX

5d•Hybrid

About The Position

The Application Security Specialist owns the design, implementation, and ongoing evolution of application and product security capabilities across multiple systems, applications, or product families throughout the product lifecycle. The role serves as a technical authority for application security, influencing secure architecture and design decisions and ensuring alignment with enterprise standards and industry best practices. It leads complex security assessments, including threat modeling and advanced code reviews, and develops risk-based remediation strategies across product teams. The role also integrates security capabilities across enterprise AI gateways such as Kong or LiteLLM, APIs, and Vanguard-developed AI applications. This includes prompt and response inspection, detection of personally identifiable information and secrets, access controls, security logging, and AI runtime protections for generative AI applications, LLMs, copilots, RAG solutions, and agentic AI systems. The specialist works with Vanguard AI, cloud, application development, cybersecurity, and architecture teams to embed secure-by-design controls throughout the AI lifecycle and protect client, crew, and regulated financial data. The position engineers and deploys AI guardrails and gateway security controls to detect and prevent prompt injection, sensitive data exposure, insecure model responses, malicious AI activity, and excessive agent access. It also enforces inference hooks through Zscaler or Alice inline with AI gateways such as Kong or LiteLLM. The specialist provides technical leadership and mentorship, supports continuous improvement of product security, and performs special projects and other duties as assigned. Vanguard is not offering visa sponsorship for this position. Vanguard’s hybrid working model applies to the majority of crew members and is designed to support flexibility alongside in-person learning, collaboration, and connection.

Requirements

Minimum of five years of related work experience.
Undergraduate degree or equivalent combination of training and experience.
Experience and technical capability in application security, including security assessments, threat modeling, and advanced code reviews.
Ability to guide secure architecture and design decisions and develop risk-based remediation strategies.
Ability to integrate and engineer security controls for AI gateways, APIs, and AI applications, including runtime protections and guardrails.

Nice To Haves

Graduate degree preferred.

Responsibilities

Own the design, implementation, and ongoing evolution of application and product security capabilities across multiple systems, applications, or product families throughout the product lifecycle.
Serve as a technical authority for application security and influence secure architecture and design decisions in alignment with enterprise standards and industry best practices.
Lead complex application security assessments, including threat modeling and advanced code reviews, and drive risk-based remediation strategies across product teams.
Evaluate and prioritize application security risks across supported products and provide expert guidance on remediation approaches and security trade-offs.
Lead integration of new security features, patches, and platform-level enhancements into existing products, ensuring security solutions scale and are consistently applied.
Provide technical leadership and mentorship to application security and engineering peers, share expertise, review work products, and elevate secure development practices.
Partner with product, engineering, and security stakeholders to improve product security, identify emerging threats, and recommend enhancements to security tools, processes, and capabilities.
Integrate security capabilities across enterprise AI gateways, APIs, and Vanguard-developed AI applications, including prompt and response inspection, PII and secrets detection, access controls, and security logging.
Partner with Vanguard AI, cloud, application development, cybersecurity, and architecture teams to embed secure-by-design controls throughout the AI lifecycle and protect client, crew, and regulated financial data.
Engineer and deploy AI guardrails and gateway security controls to detect and prevent prompt injection, sensitive data exposure, insecure model responses, malicious AI activity, and excessive agent access.
Design, build, and implement AI runtime security controls for generative AI applications, LLMs, copilots, RAG solutions, and agentic AI systems.
Enforce inference hooks via Zscaler or Alice inline with AI gateways such as Kong, LiteLLM, or similar technologies.
Participate in special projects and perform other duties as assigned.