Principal Engineer Software Security Hybrid

Cisco•Research Triangle Park, NC

20h•$202,100 - $271,700•Hybrid

About The Position

The Principal Engineer on Cisco’s AI Security team will serve as a senior technical authority shaping security standards for AI capabilities delivered to customers, partners, and internal users. The team defines and validates security practices for AI-assisted development, AI embedded in products and platforms, and AI used in internal business operations. The role defines and evolves threat models, architecture patterns, and security requirements for AI-native features, including RAG hardening, tool-call governance, agent identity, bounded autonomy, approval flows, auditability, and human accountability. It also sets standards for coding assistants and agent-authored code, including provenance, human review, accountability, and automated SDLC/CI/CD security gates. The Principal Engineer leads secure AI architecture reviews, develops reusable patterns, and establishes measurable release criteria. The role owns adversarial and supply-chain risk coverage, advances AI red-teaming and evaluation practices, and partners on post-deployment standards and incident criteria for AI-specific failure modes. It also advises senior engineering leadership and builds alignment across product security, AI platform, SecOps, privacy, and legal, translating security requirements into business outcomes. This is a hybrid role.

Requirements

12+ years of experience in software security.
Deep, hands-on experience architecting and securing AI/ML-integrated systems, including Python, CI/CD automation, evaluation harnesses, agentic workflows, and security tooling.
Proven ability to secure AI models and applications, including LLM- and agentic-AI-related vulnerabilities such as prompt injection, excessive agency, and data leakage, as well as data privacy concerns.
Strong background in threat modeling, secure software development lifecycles (SDLC), and architecture validation for large-scale, multi-platform ecosystems.
Experience quantifying security risk and providing clear, authoritative technical guidance to product managers and engineering leads across multiple teams or business units.
Ability to operate as a principal-level technical authority without direct reports, driving outcomes through expertise, codified standards, and influence across a large, matrixed organization.

Nice To Haves

Experience securing autonomous agents, tool-calling, multi-agent orchestration, and MCP-style integrations.
Experience designing or running red-team/evaluation programs for AI systems, including adversarial testing and release-gate criteria.
Deep understanding of AI safety, ethical AI, and global data protection regulations as they apply to cloud-based SaaS and AI-embedded offerings.
Familiarity with emerging AI governance and risk frameworks such as NIST AI RMF and ISO/IEC 42001.
Experience building security standards or playbooks that scale through a distributed network of embedded security practitioners.
Experience integrating security checkpoints into fast-paced, high-velocity CI/CD pipelines, including policy-as-code, automated security gates, agentic security workflows, and AI-assisted review and remediation loops.
Track record of mentoring senior-level engineers and fostering a security-first culture within high-performing technical teams.

Responsibilities

Define and evolve AI security threat models, architecture patterns, and requirements for AI-native features.
Set security standards for coding assistants and agent-authored code, including provenance, human review, accountability, and automated SDLC/CI/CD security gates.
Lead secure AI architecture design reviews, codify reusable patterns, and define measurable release criteria across Cisco platforms.
Own abuse and adversarial case coverage, including data poisoning, model extraction, model inversion, membership inference, insecure output handling, and RAG compromise.
Address model and data supply-chain provenance for models, datasets, plugins, fine-tuning data, and external APIs.
Advance red-teaming strategy, evaluation harnesses, and release checkpoints for AI capabilities.
Partner to define post-deployment standards and incident criteria for AI-specific failure modes.
Advise senior engineering leadership across CX, Operations, and Product.
Build and maintain alignment with product security, AI platform, SecOps, privacy, and legal.
Translate sophisticated security requirements into business outcomes.

Benefits

Medical insurance
Dental insurance
Vision insurance
401(k) plan with Cisco matching contribution
Paid parental leave
Short- and long-term disability coverage
Basic life insurance
Paid holidays
Floating holiday for non-exempt employees
Birthday paid day off
Paid year-end holiday shutdown
Personal wellness days
Paid vacation or flexible vacation time off, depending on employee classification
Paid sick time
Additional paid time away may be requested for critical or emergency family issues
Optional paid volunteer days
Annual bonuses for non-sales roles, subject to Cisco policies
Potential grants of Cisco restricted stock units