Principal Security Engineer | Cyber Defense Engineering

ServiceNow•Santa Clara, CA

About The Position

This is a hands-on engineering and architecture role within Cyber Defense Engineering (CDE), applied to some of the hardest, least-defined problems in cyber defense, protecting a platform trusted by thousands of the world's largest enterprises. You'll operate with minimal direction and broad latitude to set the technical agenda. You'll start by tackling one of the highest-stakes problems in enterprise security today: how do you secure a company's own employees and systems as they adopt AI faster than anyone can govern it? Think compromised internal agents, AI copilots that leak sensitive data, and shadow AI tools appearing before any policy exists. You'll architect the threat models, controls, and secure-by-design standards other teams build against, partnering with ServiceNow's product AI security research team to apply frontier research internally, and you'll be the technical authority Security, IT, and Engineering rely on for internal AI threats. Beyond internal AI security, you'll also lead initiatives that use AI to transform cyber defense more broadly, such as modernizing blue and red team practices or solving problems that don't have a name yet. This role is for engineers who want to keep solving cyber defense's hardest, least-defined problems at the frontier of the field, not run a single program indefinitely.

Requirements

Experience in leveraging or critically thinking about how to integrate AI into work processes, decision-making, or problem-solving. This may include using AI-powered tools, automating workflows, analyzing AI-driven insights, or exploring AI’s potential impact on the function or industry.
15+ years in security engineering, spanning security operations, architecture, threat modeling, and design reviews, with a recent focus on AI-specific threats. Or similar experience with education
5+ years of software engineering experience, with a proven track record of owning complex system architecture at enterprise scale
Demonstrated ability to set technical direction and architect security solutions across multiple security domains (for example, AI security, IAM, endpoint security, infra security, detection engineering, and incident response)
Clear communication and a bias toward learning fast in a field that changes constantly

Nice To Haves

Bachelor's / Master's degree or PhD in Computer Science or a related technical field, with a specialization in Security or AI/ML, or an exceptional, well-evidenced track record substituting for it
Hands-on experience threat modeling and securing modern AI systems (LLMs, agents, RAG pipelines), with evidence of platform-level impact
Deep hands-on experience with agentic AI frameworks (e.g., LangChain, LangGraph)
Built or open-sourced security tooling/automation for AI systems adopted beyond one team
Prior experience setting AI security strategy at a platform or company level

Responsibilities

Own the security architecture for internal AI adoption across ServiceNow, including agentic tools, LLMs, copilots, and the automation built on them
Push your architecture and standards through to adopted, production-grade outcomes, not just documentation, holding IAM, endpoint security, cloud security, IT, and infrastructure teams accountable for secure implementation
Threat model the most complex internal AI surfaces, from compromised or misdirected agents to attack classes not yet standardized in the industry
Partner with Legal, Privacy, IT, and Engineering leadership to define what's safe to use, and translate that into enforceable, scalable controls for sanctioned and shadow AI alike
Collaborate with ServiceNow's product AI security team to bring emerging attack research into ServiceNow internal AI security, and surface real-world internal findings back to them
Apply AI to modernize blue and red team practices, consolidate detection platforms, or take on the next problem that doesn't have a name yet
Mentor engineers across CDE and raise the technical bar on whatever problem you're driving