Principal Security Engineer - AI Security & GenAI Data Protection

Citizens Financial Group•Boston, MA

1d•Hybrid

About The Position

Citizens is seeking a Principal Security Engineer to lead the design, implementation, and enterprise rollout of its AI Security and Generative AI (GenAI) data protection capability. The position serves as the technical owner of the AI Gateway platform, directing its evaluation, deployment, policy engineering, inline remediation, governance, and ongoing operations across sanctioned and unsanctioned AI use. The role partners across Cybersecurity, Data Protection, Technology, Risk, Privacy, Legal, and business teams to reduce data loss risk while enabling responsible AI adoption. The work arrangement is hybrid, with four days onsite and one remote, in one of the listed hubs: Johnston, Rhode Island; Boston, Massachusetts; Marlton, New Jersey; Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; Phoenix, Arizona; Irving, Texas; Manchester, New Hampshire; Cleveland or Columbus, Ohio; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; or Franklin, Tennessee.

Requirements

Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Information Security, Information Technology, or a related field, or equivalent professional experience.
At least 7 years of progressive experience in cybersecurity, information security engineering, or related technical disciplines.
At least 2 years of hands-on experience with Data Protection, SSE, SASE, CASB, DLP, AI Security, GenAI Security, or similar inline security technologies.
Deep understanding of GenAI data flows and security risks across prompts, uploads, browser traffic, embedded copilots, APIs, AI agents, and third-party integrations.
Experience implementing enterprise security controls capable of monitoring, coaching, redacting, quarantining, or blocking risky data movement in real time.
Strong knowledge of SIEM, SOAR, ITSM, identity management, and security orchestration workflows.
Experience with identity and access management concepts, including corporate versus personal instances, least privilege, non-human identities, OAuth, OIDC, and service-to-service access.
Understanding of data protection, governance, risk management, and regulated-industry control requirements.
Strong communication skills and ability to translate complex technical risks into actionable business guidance.
Proven experience leading cross-functional security platform rollouts and balancing risk, usability, and business objectives.

Nice To Haves

Direct AI Gateway experience.
CISSP, CCSP, CISM, or comparable security certifications.
Experience with AI Security, DLP, SSE, SASE, CASB, DSPM, or related data protection platforms.
Experience with Cyera Omni, Netskope AI Security, AISecOps, or similar technologies.
Familiarity with Python, PowerShell, APIs, automation, reporting, and workflow orchestration.
Experience working in financial services, healthcare, or other highly regulated industries.
Experience developing governance standards, risk-based enforcement models, exception management processes, and control evidence frameworks.
Experience securing agentic AI environments, MCP-enabled integrations, AI agents, non-human identities, prompt and upload workflows, and GenAI data leakage scenarios.

Responsibilities

Own the end-to-end AI Gateway capability, including evaluation, proof of concept, selection, deployment, configuration, policy tuning, operational support, and continuous improvement.
Develop and execute a phased rollout from monitor mode to warn and coach to targeted blocking, using observed AI traffic and risk metrics to establish baselines and controls.
Engineer and tune controls for GenAI prompts, file uploads, browser traffic, embedded copilots, and sanctioned and unsanctioned AI applications.
Implement inline remediation controls, including redaction, quarantine, user coaching, warnings, and blocking.
Establish instance-aware controls that distinguish corporate from personal accounts and reduce data leakage risk.
Assess AI and agentic integration risks involving AI agents, Model Context Protocol (MCP), non-human identities, third-party integrations, and emerging access paths.
Integrate AI Gateway telemetry with SIEM, SOAR, ITSM, identity platforms, data protection solutions, and evidence repositories.
Define and operationalize governance standards, policy lifecycle processes, exception handling procedures, escalation paths, and ownership models.
Measure and report program effectiveness using coverage, policy accuracy, false positive and false negative trends, remediation outcomes, audit evidence quality, and user experience metrics.
Partner with business leaders and AI platform owners to introduce coaching and enforcement controls with minimal disruption.
Stay current on AI security threats, GenAI data loss trends, agentic AI developments, MCP capabilities, and evolving security technologies.
Contribute to standards, procedures, training materials, and enterprise communications related to secure AI adoption.
Support risk, audit, and regulatory readiness by maintaining defensible security evidence, policy decisions, exceptions, and enforcement outcomes.