Principal Agentic AI Security Engineer

AbbVie•North Chicago, IL

4h•$141,500 - $268,500

About The Position

We are building a team that develops AI agents to solve hard security problems -- and you will be tackling the hardest ones. This is a hands-on, senior IC role. You will architect, build, and ship agentic AI systems that operate autonomously within security environments, while also driving the technical direction and standards for how these systems are built, tested, and secured. This is not a management role and not a pure research role. You will write code, ship systems, and get your hands dirty -- but you will be working on problems where there is no playbook yet. You will define the approach, build the proof of concept, harden it for production, and write the technical guidance others follow.

Requirements

Bachelor's Degree with 9 years’ experience; Master's Degree with 8 years’ experience; PhD with 4 years’ experience.
Respective years of experience in cybersecurity, security engineering, or security research -- with substantial hands-on technical depth
Strong software engineering skills -- you ship production systems, not just prototypes. Python required; additional languages a plus
Deep expertise in at least two of: security operations, application security, threat intelligence, vulnerability research, detection engineering, offensive security, cloud security
Demonstrated experience building AI agents and AI/ML-powered security tools or automation that operated at scale
Hands-on experience with agentic coding tools (e.g., Claude Code, Cursor, GitHub Copilot, Aider, or similar) as part of your daily development workflow -- you build with agents, not just build agents
Track record of original technical work -- published research, open-source tooling, conference presentations, or equivalent evidence of independent technical contribution
Ability to work at the intersection of security and AI: you understand both the security implications of AI systems and how to apply AI to security problems
Experience developing technical standards, frameworks, or guidance that others adopted
Strong written and verbal communication -- you can explain complex technical concepts to both engineers and senior leadership, and you can write strategically about emerging technology risks at a level that shapes organizational direction

Nice To Haves

Experience with agent orchestration and autonomous systems (custom frameworks, LangChain, AutoGen, MCP, or similar)
Background in adversarial ML, AI red teaming, or AI safety
Familiarity with security compliance frameworks (NIST, ISO 27001, SOX) and how they apply to AI systems
Published work (Black Hat, DEF CON, OWASP, academic journals, or equivalent venues)
Experience in regulated industries (financial services, healthcare, critical infrastructure, government/defense)
Contributions to open-source security projects
OWASP, MITRE ATT&CK, or similar framework expertise applied in production environments
Security clearance eligibility (not required)

Responsibilities

Architect and build AI agent systems for security operations -- autonomous detection, investigation, response, threat hunting, vulnerability analysis, and risk assessment
Tackle the novel, high-complexity problems: adversarial robustness of agent systems, secure agent-to-agent communication, guardrails for autonomous decision-making in high-stakes security contexts
Develop frameworks, tooling, and patterns for building secure and reliable agentic AI systems -- then use them yourself
Conduct original research and experimentation on agentic AI applied to offensive and defensive security, translating findings into working code
Build proof-of-concept exploits and adversarial tests against agentic AI systems to identify failure modes and inform defensive design
Develop and publish technical guidance and policy for agentic AI security -- grounded in systems you have built and broken
Independently author security position papers on emerging technologies -- strategic, high-level documents that frame organizational thinking on new threat domains and drive downstream policy and technical guidance
Serve as a subject matter expert and key driver of the AI Cybersecurity Maturity program, spanning application security, training, AI controls and infrastructure, AI discovery and inventory, operations and incident response, and policy and procedure development
Integrate LLMs, custom models, and security tooling (SIEM, EDR, SOAR, cloud platforms, vulnerability scanners) into agent architectures
Evaluate and adopt emerging AI capabilities (new models, frameworks, techniques) and determine their applicability to security problems
Set technical direction for agent development practices, including evaluation frameworks, testing methodologies, and deployment patterns
Mentor and elevate other engineers on the team through code review, design guidance, and technical leadership