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Here at Appian, our values of Intensity and Excellence define who we are. We set high standards and live up to them, ensuring that everything we do is done with care and quality. We approach every challenge with ambition and commitment, holding ourselves and each other accountable to achieve the best results. When you join Appian, you’ll be part of a passionate team dedicated to accomplishing hard things, together.
AI Security Engineer (Agentic SOC)
Location: McLean, VA | On-site (5 days/week)
ABOUT THE TEAM
The Appian Information Security department continuously evaluates the global threat landscape to protect Appian operations and service offerings. Our mission is to build, monitor, and scale robust security tools and processes that shield critical corporate and customer assets from emerging threats, international security concerns, and vulnerabilities, ensuring our AI-Powered Process Automation platform remains resilient and secure.
THE OPPORTUNITY
At Appian, we believe our greatest innovations spring from in-person collaboration. Joining our team at our McLean headquarters means you will work alongside elite security architects in a high-velocity environment that prioritizes your professional growth. This role offers an unparalleled launchpad to transition academic knowledge into real-world impact, giving you direct ownership over intrusion detection capabilities and cloud-based defense strategies for our Enterprise-Grade Orchestration ecosystem.
WHAT YOU'LL DO
- Build & Deploy Agents: Design, test, and deploy autonomous and semi-autonomous AI agents that integrate natively with our enterprise security stack (SIEM, EDR, XDR, and Threat Intel feeds).
- Code the Playbooks: Translate traditional, human-centric SOC playbooks and analyst workflows into deterministic and heuristic agentic pipelines (using DAGs and multi-agent routing).
- Optimize RAG Pipelines: Design, optimize, and maintain production-grade Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) workflows to inject real-time security context, network topology, and historical incident logs into agent prompts.
- LLM Performance Engineering: Continuously evaluate, benchmark, and optimize LLM performance, context window utilization, latency, and cost-efficiency across various models (OSS and commercial).
- Design Human-in-the-Loop (HITL): Collaborate deeply with Tier 3 Analysts and Threat Hunters to engineer seamless HITL handoff mechanisms, ensuring agents safely escalate complex anomalies to humans.
- Secure the AI: Implement robust security boundaries around our LLM architecture, mitigating risks like prompt injection, data poisoning, model tool-abuse, and addressing the OWASP Top 10 for LLMs .
REQUIRED QUALIFICATIONS
- Education: Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, AI, Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, or related fields plus at least 2 years of experience developing AI and ML algorithms or technologies, OR a Master's degree in a related field plus at least 1 year of experience.
- Experience: At least 2 years of experience programming with Python, Go, Scala, or Java.
- You are a Builder First: You take immense pride in shipping clean, production-grade, asynchronous code. You care about system architecture as much as model accuracy.
- Security-Curious or Security-Hardened: You bridge the gap between AI research and practical cybersecurity. You understand that an AI agent is only as good as the guardrails keeping it from deleting a production server during a false positive.
- Thrives in Ambiguity: Building an Agentic SOC means charting unknown territory. You love breaking down abstract, high-level security problems into concrete, execution-ready AI systems.
PREFERRED QUALIFICATIONS
- 3 years of experience deploying scalable and responsible AI solutions on cloud platforms (e.g., AWS, Google Cloud, Azure).
- Experience designing, developing, delivering, and supporting AI services, specifically within the domains of security operations or threat intelligence.
Hands-on experience building multi-agent or complex orchestration systems using tools such as LangChain, LlamaIndex, AutoGen, CrewAI, or Semantic Kernel.
Proven experience working with production Vector Databases (e.g., Pinecone, Qdrant, Milvus, or Weaviate) for semantic chunking, embedding generation, and metadata filtering. - Experience deploying and scaling AI workloads in containerized cloud environments (AWS, Azure, or GCP using Kubernetes/EKS/AKS).
The base salary range represents a good faith and reasonable estimate of the range at the time of posting. Actual compensation will be dependent on a number of factors including, but not limited to, the candidate’s relevant work experience, qualifications, internal peer equity, and market and business conditions that exist when extending an offer. A discretionary bonus may be awarded in recognition of individual and company performance.
In addition, Appian provides generous benefits offerings that include a 401(k) plan with company match, flexible time off, paid parental leave, medical, dental, and vision plans, life insurance, disability insurance, wellness programs, flexible spending accounts, health savings account contributions, an employee referral bonus program, and learning and development resources. Certain positions may be eligible for equity awards.
Pay and benefits are subject to change at any time, consistent with the terms of any applicable compensation, commission, bonus, or benefit plans.
Tools and Resources
- Training and Development: During onboarding, we focus on equipping new hires with the skills and knowledge for success through department-specific training. Continuous learning is a central focus at Appian, with dedicated mentorship and the First-Friend program being widely utilized resources for new hires.
- Growth Opportunities: Appian provides a diverse array of growth and development opportunities, including our leadership program tailored for new and aspiring managers, a comprehensive library of specialized department training through Appian University, skills based training, and tuition reimbursement for those aiming to advance their education. This commitment ensures that employees have access to a holistic range of development opportunities.
- Community: We’ll immerse you into our community rooted in respect starting on day one. Appian fosters inclusivity through our 8 employee-led affinity groups. These groups help employees build stronger internal and external networks by planning social, educational, and outreach activities to connect with Appianites and larger initiatives throughout the company.
Benefits
Appian offers a comprehensive benefits package designed to support your health, wellbeing, and financial future. Benefits may include health coverage, Employee Assistance Program (EAP) with free mental health support, life and disability insurance, an Employee Stock Purchase Program (ESPP), a retirement/pension plan, wellness dollars, tuition reimbursement, family-forming benefits and more. Benefits vary by country—please ask your Talent Acquisition contact for details specific to the location you are applying to.
About Appian
Appian provides AI automation for the most important business processes at the world’s largest organizations. Our platform is known for its unique power, reliability, and scale. We’ve been automating processes for more than 25 years and have proven expertise in enterprise operations. For more information, visit appian.com.
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Appian is an equal opportunity employer that strives to attract and retain the best talent. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to any characteristic protected by applicable federal, state, or local law.
Appian provides reasonable accommodations to applicants in accordance with all applicable laws. If you need a reasonable accommodation for any part of the employment process, please contact us by email at [email protected]. Please note that only inquiries concerning a request for reasonable accommodation will be responded to from this email address.
Appian's Applicant & Candidate Privacy Notice
Skills Required
- Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, AI, Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, or a related field, plus at least 2 years of experience developing AI and ML algorithms or technologies
- Master's degree in a related field plus at least 1 year of experience developing AI and ML algorithms or technologies
- At least 2 years of programming experience with Python, Go, Scala, or Java
- Experience shipping clean, production-grade asynchronous code
- Understanding of practical cybersecurity and AI security guardrails
- At least 3 years of experience deploying scalable and responsible AI solutions on cloud platforms such as AWS, Google Cloud, or Azure
- Experience designing, developing, delivering, and supporting AI services for security operations or threat intelligence
- Hands-on experience building multi-agent or complex orchestration systems with LangChain, LlamaIndex, AutoGen, CrewAI, or Semantic Kernel
- Experience with production vector databases such as Pinecone, Qdrant, Milvus, or Weaviate
- Experience deploying and scaling AI workloads in containerized cloud environments using Kubernetes, EKS, or AKS
Appian Corporation Compensation & Benefits Highlights
The following summarizes recurring compensation and benefits themes identified from responses generated by popular LLMs to common candidate questions about Appian Corporation and has not been reviewed or approved by Appian Corporation.
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Healthcare Strength — Health coverage is described as fully employer-paid for medical with dental and vision included, alongside mental health support such as no-cost therapy/coaching and Headspace. Feedback suggests care navigation and wellness reimbursements further strengthen day-to-day healthcare access.
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Parental & Family Support — Family support includes 12 weeks paid parental leave for all parents plus 4 weeks recovery for birth mothers, a $5,000 family-forming stipend, and backup care via Bright Horizons. These offerings are portrayed as comprehensive and supportive of different family paths.
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Affordable Benefits — Medical premiums are covered 100% by the employer in the U.S., reducing out-of-pocket costs for core coverage. HSA and FSA options and other tax-advantaged accounts add to affordability for routine and dependent care needs.
Appian Corporation Insights
What We Do
Appian helps organizations build apps and workflows rapidly, with a low-code automation platform. Combining people, technologies, and data in a single workflow, Appian can help companies maximize their resources and improve business results. Many of the world’s largest organizations use Appian applications to improve customer experience, achieve operational excellence, and simplify global risk management and compliance.
Why Work With Us
Appian was founded on the belief that talented and passionate people, given the power and autonomy to excel, will deliver amazing impact. We have worked thoughtfully to create an inclusive, agile and collaborative work environment where employees feel challenged, and all voices are heard.
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