Staff AI Security Engineer

Okta•Washington, DC

3h•$180,000 - $247,500•Hybrid

About The Position

Identity is the key to unlocking the potential of AI. Okta secures AI by building the trusted, neutral infrastructure that enables organizations to safely embrace this new era. This work requires a relentless drive to solve complex challenges with real-world stakes. We are looking for builders and owners who operate with speed and urgency and execute with excellence. This is an opportunity to do career-defining work. We're all in on this mission. If you are too, let's talk. At Okta, we’re building the future of secure, enterprise-grade AI Agents. We’re looking for a Staff AI Security Engineer to join our dedicated Security team. In this role, you will define the technical vision, architecture, and hands-on security controls for AI models, agentic workflows, and autonomous systems across Okta. This is a senior individual contributor role for a hands-on engineer who can design scalable AI security infrastructure, mentor engineers, and partner with cross-functional teams to build secure "paved roads" for AI innovation.

Requirements

Deep knowledge of the AI threat landscape, including OWASP, MITRE ATLAS, NIST AI RMF with practical experience prompt injection, excessive agency, and other AI-related threats.
8+ years of experience in security engineering or backend software development, with strong coding proficiency in Python or Go and hands-on cloud experience.
Experience securing or auditing agentic frameworks (such as LangChain, Strands, Claude Agent SDK, or custom tool-calling agents) operating within sandboxed environments.
Proven ability to design scalable cloud infrastructure (AWS/GCP), API gateways, proxy architectures, and access controls for enterprise systems.
Track record of building developer-first security tools and platform controls that maintain engineering velocity.
Strong communication skills with a history of driving technical strategy, influencing engineering leaders, and mentoring engineers.
Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Cybersecurity, Information Security, or equivalent practical experience

Responsibilities

Design and deploy enterprise AI guardrails, gateways, and other controls to protect our agentic workflows from emerging threats
Establish security architectures for local and hosted agents to mitigate tool-calling, prompt injection, prompt injection, excessive agency, and data exfiltration risks.
Develop secure design patterns and developer tools that allow engineering teams to build and deploy AI features safely and quickly.
Lead threat modeling and security reviews for agentic AI systems, enterprise deployments, and agent ecosystems.
Build systems to discover, inventory, and assess AI usage and data flows across the enterprise.
Design and operate internal AI security platforms and develop integrated AI capabilities that automate complex security operations.
Drive technical alignment across product, security, and infrastructure teams. Mentor engineers and security practitioners across domains