Principal AI Security Engineer
Your role as Principal Security Engineer is to work with engineering teams and architecture to produce high-quality technology solutions. You will be given the autonomy to lead, design and develop innovative solutions to some of the biggest technical issues facing the banking industry. As a Principal Security Engineer, you will serve as a peer-leader tasked with pursuing cutting-edge initiatives and solutions. The breadth of Citizens operations ensures a diversity of projects as the bank pivots towards innovation and customer experience.
Locations & Work Arrangement: Remote is not an option, candidates must be willing to commute to one of the following hub locations with a hybrid schedule of 4 days onsite and 1 day remote per week with flexibility in one of the following hubs:
• Phoenix, AZ • Johnston, RI • Boston, MA • Franklin, TN • Westwood, MA • Pittsburgh, PA • Charlotte, NC • Irving, TX • Cleveland, OH • Philadelphia, PA • Marlton, NJ
The Principle Security Engineer will be responsible for:
• Collaborating and contributing insight to solution design ideation, ensuring both the success of the product and adherence to enterprise architecture principles.
• Designing, modifying, developing and implementing software solutions. Building modern, architecturally sound components, tools and applications to meet mission-driven strategic business goals.
• Infusing quality of service characteristics, such as scalability, manageability and maintainability, into distributed service-based system designs
• Employing industry best practices to evaluate, correct and prevent vulnerabilities during the software development process.
• Serving as a peer-leader, encouraging a culture of innovation and accountability
• Build and operationalize security controls that protect AI-powered applications, ensuring models, prompts, and outputs are resilient against misuse and abuse.
• Focus on securing the full AI lifecycle—from data ingestion and model training to deployment and runtime—across both internal applications and external platforms.
• Engineer safeguards against emerging AI threats such as prompt injection, data poisoning, model inversion, and unintended data leakage.
• Strengthen identity and access controls for AI systems, including service identities, API protection, and least-privilege access across SaaS and cloud environments.
• Secure integrations between AI components and enterprise systems (databases, APIs, SaaS tools) to prevent unauthorized access and data exfiltration.
• Protect sensitive data used by AI systems through encryption, tokenization, and privacy-preserving techniques across hybrid and cloud-native architectures.
• Continuously monitor AI systems and agentic behaviors for anomalies, policy violations, and malicious activity using logging and detection engineering practices.
• Harden cloud infrastructure that supports AI workloads, including containers, orchestration platforms, and serverless services, ensuring secure configurations.
• Evaluate and manage risks associated with third-party AI SaaS solutions, focusing on data handling, access control, and vendor security posture.
• Integrate automated security testing into AI development pipelines, including adversarial testing and validation of model robustness.
• Lead incident response efforts related to AI systems, investigating misuse, model drift with security implications, and potential data exposure events.
• Collaborate cross-functionally with architects, developers, and governance teams to align AI security practices with business objectives and regulatory requirements.
Required Qualifications
• 8+ years of working experience in data intensive applications or data engineering
• Experience implementing large-scale technological enhancements and/or pivots, including pilot implementation and analysis
• Excellent understanding of AI/ML patterns and techniques
• Excellent understanding of DevOps
• Understanding of python and at least one other programming language
• Experience working with IT infrastructure and cloud development
• Experience with API’s
• Experience designing highly available and resilient solutions, automation, identify opportunity of performance improvements
• A bachelor’s degree or foreign equivalent in computer science or a related field
• Experience in 2 or 3 of the following technology areas. Infrastructure, Security, DevOps, Application Development, database technologies, cloud computing
Desired Qualifications
• Working experience in the financial services industry
• Bachelor’s degree in computer science, computer engineering or a related discipline
• Executive speaking and presentation skills: formal presentations, white-boarding, large and small group presentations
Education and Certifications
• Required: Bachelor's degree
• Preferred: Degree in Software Engineering, Computer Science, Engineering, Mathematics or related discipline
Pay Transparency
• The salary range for this position is $150,000 to $190,000 per year, plus an opportunity to earn additional incentive earnings. Actual pay is based on various factors including, but not limited to, the budget, work location, and relevant skills and experience.
Benefits
Comprehensive benefits include medical, dental, and vision coverage, retirement plans, parental leave, flexible work arrangements, education reimbursement, wellness programs, and generous paid time off exceeding local requirements.
Citizens Benefits Overview
For an overview of our benefits, visit our Careers site: Citizens Benefits Overview.
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About Us
Equal Employment Opportunity
Citizens, its parent, subsidiaries, and related companies (Citizens) provide equal employment and advancement opportunities to all colleagues and applicants for employment without regard to age, ancestry, color, citizenship, physical or mental disability, perceived disability or history or record of a disability, ethnicity, gender, gender identity or expression, genetic information, genetic characteristic, marital or domestic partner status, victim of domestic violence, family status/parenthood, medical condition, military or veteran status, national origin, pregnancy/childbirth/lactation, colleague’s or a dependent’s reproductive health decision making, race, religion, sex, sexual orientation, or any other category protected by federal, state and/or local laws. At Citizens, we are committed to fostering an inclusive culture that enables all colleagues to bring their best selves to work every day and everyone is expected to be treated with respect and professionalism. Employment decisions are based solely on merit, qualifications, performance and capability.
Equal Employment and Opportunity Employer
Job Applicant Data Privacy Policy
Background Check
Any offer of employment is conditioned upon the candidate successfully passing a background check, which may include initial credit, motor vehicle record, public record, prior employment verification, and criminal background checks. Results of the background check are individually reviewed based upon legal requirements imposed by our regulators and with consideration of the nature and gravity of the background history and the job offered. Any offer of employment will include further information.
Skills Required
- 8+ years of experience in data-intensive applications or data engineering
- Experience implementing large-scale technological enhancements or pivots, including pilot implementation and analysis
- Excellent understanding of AI/ML patterns and techniques
- Excellent understanding of DevOps
- Understanding of Python and at least one other programming language
- Experience working with IT infrastructure and cloud development
- Experience with APIs
- Experience designing highly available and resilient solutions and identifying performance improvements
- Bachelor's degree or foreign equivalent in computer science or a related field
- Experience in two or three of infrastructure, security, DevOps, application development, database technologies, or cloud computing
- Working experience in the financial services industry
- Executive speaking and presentation skills, including formal presentations and whiteboarding
- Degree in software engineering, computer science, engineering, mathematics, or a related discipline
Citizens Compensation & Benefits Highlights
The following summarizes recurring compensation and benefits themes identified from responses generated by popular LLMs to common candidate questions about Citizens and has not been reviewed or approved by Citizens.
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Parental & Family Support — Policies include six weeks of fully paid parental leave for all parents, up to 16 weeks for birthing parents, 10 days of emergency back‑up care, and adoption assistance of more than $25,000. Recognition for adoption support underscores a strong family‑friendly posture.
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Leave & Time Off Breadth — Time off includes 11 paid holidays and up to 27 PTO days. The breadth of leave is presented as generous versus many peers.
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Healthcare Strength — Medical, dental, and vision options pair with an HSA that includes a company contribution, plus mental‑health access via Spring Health (eight no‑cost sessions), Hinge Health, wellness programs, and discounted gyms. Eligibility at 20+ hours per week broadens access to these resources.
Citizens Insights
What We Do
As one of the oldest and largest financial services firms in the United States with a history dating back to 1828, we’re committed to providing solutions and expertise that support our customers, clients, colleagues, and communities in what’s next on their own unique journey. We invest in the humans who build the logic, ideas, and innovations that bring new technologies to life. Investments in AI, cloud computing, machine learning and automation provide our engineers the tools that enable us to remain competitive and win in today’s environment. At Citizens, we recognize that the journey to accomplishment is no longer linear and that individuals are made of all they have done and all they are going to do. Whether you’re considering banking with us or looking to work with us, you’ll find a customer-centric culture and a supportive, collaborative workforce at Citizens. You’re made ready and so are we. If you're ready to advance your career in technology and security, learn more about opportunity's Citizens offers here: https://jobs.citizensbank.com/digital-transformation
Why Work With Us
We empower the colleagues that power our tech. With growth & upskilling opportunities and sought-after benefits, plus a diverse culture of people and perspectives, we help our colleagues achieve career goals. Because innovation can’t happen without the minds and hearts of our people. Technology is constantly evolving, and we believe you can too.
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