Senior GRC Specialist

Who are we?

Cohere is the leading security-first enterprise AI company. We build cutting-edge foundation AI models and end-to-end products that are designed to solve real-world business problems.

We’re training and deploying frontier models for enterprises who are building AI systems. We believe that our work is instrumental to the widespread adoption of AI and we are looking for folks that want to be part of that.

We obsess over what we build. Each one of us is responsible for contributing to increasing the capabilities of our models and the value they drive for our customers. Cohere is a team of researchers, engineers, designers, and more, who are all passionate about their craft.

We are a global technology company co-headquartered in Toronto and San Francisco, with key offices in London, New York City, Montreal, Seoul, Germany and Paris. Join us!

The Governance, Risk, and Compliance (GRC) team at Cohere operates as a centralized function within the Security organization, leading efforts across governance, risk management, and compliance. This team is instrumental in reinforcing customer trust, ensuring adherence to regulatory requirements, and advancing robust internal governance and control practices across Cohere.

This role offers the opportunity to help build and shape Cohere’s compliance and governance foundation. As expectations around security, privacy, public sector readiness, and responsible AI continue to evolve, this individual will play a key role in translating complex requirements into scalable programs, practical controls, and durable governance processes. It is a high-impact role for someone eager to work at the intersection of security, compliance, technology, and AI governance, and to help enable responsible growth in a fast-moving environment.

This is not a purely policy-focused GRC role. We’re looking for someone who can pair compliance expertise with practical technical problem-solving, including automation, lightweight tool building, and process improvement.

• Build, implement, and scale compliance programs, controls, and processes across frameworks and regulatory requirements including SOC 2, ISO 27001, HIPAA, ISO 42001, Product Compliance, and FedRAMP/DoD (+others)

• Support and mature compliance efforts related AI governance including work aligned to ISO 42001 and the EU AI Act

• Drive compliance readiness for FedRAMP, DoD, and related public sector requirements, while supporting broader enterprise and customer-facing compliance obligations

• Partner with Security, Engineering, Modeling, Product, Legal, and other cross-functional teams to translate requirements into practical, scalable controls

• Improve compliance operations through automation, tooling, and scalable workflows

• Help build scripts or lightweight tools for evidence collection, reporting, control tracking, and audit readiness

• Manage cross-functional projects, timelines, remediation efforts, and audit preparation

• Support audits, assessments, and customer or regulatory compliance requests.

You’ll ideally have 7+ years of progressive experience in the following:

• Building and scaling compliance programs across multiple frameworks and regulatory requirements, including SOC 2, ISO 27001, HIPAA, with extensive experience in FedRAMP, DoD, and public sector or highly regulated environments

• AI governance and frameworks such as ISO 42001

• Strong project management and cross-functional execution skills

• Technical fluency and comfort working with Engineering and Security teams

• Automation, workflow tooling, or process design; some hands-on experience with Python or similar scripting for lightweight automation is a plus

• Strong written communication, organization, and attention to detail.

• Experience designing and implementing mature risk management frameworks, including FAIR, quantitative risk methodologies, and other structured enterprise risk models

• Consulting experience in regulated environments, including multi-jurisdictional compliance programs and regulatory requirements across the U.S. and international markets

• Experience with additional frameworks such as NIST CSF, NIST RMF, NIST AI RMF, CMMC, or similar standards

• Experience working in cloud-native, SaaS, or highly technical product environments

• Experience preparing reports, metrics, and presentations for senior leadership, including communicating compliance posture, program progress, and risk insights to executive stakeholders.

If some of the above doesn’t line up perfectly with your experience, we still encourage you to apply!

• Cohere is remote-friendly. We have offices in Toronto, San Francisco, New York City, London, Paris, Montreal, and more coming soon.

• For those in the office: a daily lunch program, plenty of snacks, and regular community and social events.

• For those not near an office: a co-working benefit so you can work alongside others in your city.

If any of the above doesn’t line up exactly with your experience, we still encourage you to apply.

We strive to create an inclusive work environment for all; we welcome applicants from all backgrounds and are committed to providing equal opportunities. Should you require any accommodations during the recruitment process, please submit an Accommodations Request Form, and we will work together to meet your needs.

We may use AI-enabled tools to screen and assess applicants against the criteria for this position. This helps our recruiters identify potentially qualified candidates, but it doesn't limit the applications our recruiters may review or consider.