Principal, AI Security Engineer

Our Purpose

Mastercard powers economies and empowers people in 200+ countries and territories worldwide. Together with our customers, we’re helping build a sustainable economy where everyone can prosper. We support a wide range of digital payments choices, making transactions secure, simple, smart and accessible. Our technology and innovation, partnerships and networks combine to deliver a unique set of products and services that help people, businesses and governments realize their greatest potential.

Title and Summary

Principal, AI Security Engineer

Job Description Summary
As a Principal Information Security Engineer specializing in AI Security, you will serve as a recognized technical authority responsible for defining and advancing the enterprise AI security strategy. You will lead the design of scalable security architectures, drive innovation in AI security capabilities, influence organizational security standards, and provide expert guidance on securing AI systems across the enterprise. This role requires deep expertise in AI technologies, emerging threat landscapes, secure system design, and risk management, coupled with the ability to shape long-term security direction and mentor senior technical practitioners.
Key Responsibilities
Security Architecture Design
Define and lead the enterprise AI security architecture strategy, establishing security frameworks, reference architectures, secure design patterns, and engineering standards for AI systems and platforms.
Provide technical leadership and governance for the secure implementation of AI solutions across multiple business units and technology domains.
Evaluate emerging AI technologies and architectures to identify security risks and establish appropriate mitigation strategies.
Vulnerability Assessment
Define and champion enterprise methodologies, tooling strategies, and assessment frameworks for evaluating AI systems against evolving threats, adversarial attacks, and model exploitation techniques.
Lead complex security assessments, red team exercises, and penetration testing initiatives focused on AI models, AI agents, LLM applications, and supporting infrastructure.
Drive remediation strategies and risk reduction initiatives across large-scale AI deployments.
Secure AI Development
Establish enterprise security requirements and best practices for the AI development lifecycle, including data handling, model development, validation, deployment, monitoring, and retirement.
Partner with engineering, data science, product, and security teams to embed security-by-design principles into AI initiatives.
Provide technical oversight and guidance on the security evaluation of AI technologies, platforms, and business use cases.
Compliance and Standards
Influence and contribute to the development of internal security standards, control frameworks, and governance models for AI security.
Monitor evolving regulatory requirements, industry frameworks, and emerging guidance from organizations such as NIST, ISO, OWASP, MITRE, and global regulatory bodies.
Represent the organization in external industry forums, working groups, and strategic engagements related to AI security and emerging technology risk.
Research and Innovation
Serve as a thought leader in AI security by researching emerging threats, attack techniques, and defensive capabilities.
Drive innovation through the development of new security methodologies, architectures, and technologies to protect AI systems and data.
Translate emerging research and industry trends into actionable security strategies and roadmap recommendations.
Documentation and Reporting
Develop and maintain enterprise-level security guidance, technical standards, architecture patterns, assessment methodologies, and executive-facing security recommendations.
Present findings, risk assessments, strategic recommendations, and investment priorities to senior leadership and security governance bodies.
Author technical whitepapers, architectural guidance, and strategic security position papers.
Advisory and Support
Serve as the highest level technical advisor for AI security initiatives, providing expert consultation on architecture, risk management, technology evaluations, and strategic investments.
Influence security decisions across programs and platforms by providing authoritative guidance on AI security risks and mitigations.
Partner with senior leaders to align AI security initiatives with enterprise risk management objectives.
Technical Leadership and Mentorship
Provide technical leadership and mentorship to security engineers, architects, and engineering teams.
Foster the development of AI security expertise across the organization through knowledge sharing, training, and leadership of technical communities of practice.
Establish technical direction and promote engineering excellence in AI security disciplines.
Experimentation and POCs
Lead advanced research efforts, proof-of-concept initiatives, and security innovation programs focused on emerging AI technologies and threat vectors.
Evaluate the security implications of next-generation AI technologies and guide investment decisions based on technical and risk assessments.
Partner with research organizations, vendors, and academic institutions to identify and validate emerging security solutions.
Qualifications
Bachelor's or Master's degree in Computer Science, Information Security, Artificial Intelligence, or a related field.
Extensive experience in information security, including significant experience leading AI security, application security, or security architecture initiatives at enterprise scale.
Deep expertise in AI technologies, machine learning systems, large language models, AI agents, data protection, and secure software engineering practices.
Demonstrated success in defining security strategy, security architectures, and governance frameworks for complex technology environments.
Strong knowledge of AI security threat modeling, adversarial machine learning, model security, data security, secure deployment architectures, and cloud security.
Proven ability to influence technical direction and drive adoption of security standards across diverse engineering organizations.
Exceptional analytical, problem-solving, communication, and stakeholder management skills.
Experience presenting technical concepts, risk assessments, and strategic recommendations to senior executives and technical leadership.
Relevant certifications such as CISSP, CCSP, OSCP, GIAC certifications, AI Security certifications, or equivalent are highly desirable.
Demonstrated leadership in industry forums, research publications, open-source contributions, standards development, or other thought leadership activities is preferred.

Mastercard is a merit-based, inclusive, equal opportunity employer that considers applicants without regard to gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, race, ethnicity, disabled or veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by law. We hire the most qualified candidate for the role. In the US or Canada, if you require accommodations or assistance to complete the online application process or during the recruitment process, please contact [email protected] and identify the type of accommodation or assistance you are requesting. Do not include any medical or health information in this email. The Reasonable Accommodations team will respond to your email promptly.

Corporate Security Responsibility

All activities involving access to Mastercard assets, information, and networks comes with an inherent risk to the organization and, therefore, it is expected that every person working for, or on behalf of, Mastercard is responsible for information security and must:

• Abide by Mastercard’s security policies and practices;

• Ensure the confidentiality and integrity of the information being accessed;

• Report any suspected information security violation or breach, and

• Complete all periodic mandatory security trainings in accordance with Mastercard’s guidelines.

In line with Mastercard’s total compensation philosophy and assuming that the job will be performed in the US, the successful candidate will be offered a competitive base salary and may be eligible for an annual bonus or commissions depending on the role. The base salary offered may vary depending on multiple factors, including but not limited to location, job-related knowledge, skills, and experience. Mastercard benefits for full time (and certain part time) employees generally include: insurance (including medical, prescription drug, dental, vision, disability, life insurance); flexible spending account and health savings account; paid leaves (including 16 weeks of new parent leave and up to 20 days of bereavement leave); 80 hours of Paid Sick and Safe Time, 25 days of vacation time and 5 personal days, pro-rated based on date of hire; 10 annual paid U.S. observed holidays; 401k with a best-in-class company match; deferred compensation for eligible roles; fitness reimbursement or on-site fitness facilities; eligibility for tuition reimbursement; and many more. Mastercard benefits for interns generally include: 56 hours of Paid Sick and Safe Time; jury duty leave; and on-site fitness facilities in some locations.

Pay Ranges

O'Fallon, Missouri: $170,000 - $281,000 USD