AI-Application Security Engineer

Why Stifel

Stifel strives for a culture that puts its clients and associates first: a culture where everyone belongs, everyone is welcome, and everyone contributes to the success of our clients, their careers, and the firm as a whole.

 

Let’s talk about how you can find your place here at Stifel, where success meets success.

What You'll Be Doing

The AI-Application Security Engineer is responsible for implementing and scaling technical security controls and security processes across internally developed applications and AI-enabled systems. This role partners directly with engineering teams to embed security into the software development and AI lifecycles, and, in partnership with the AI-Application Security Architect, contributes to detailed technical design and operationalizes security architecture, standards, and secure-by-design practices. This engineer operates with moderate autonomy, leads security initiatives end-to-end, and contributes to the evolution of application and AI security capabilities. The role requires strong hands-on technical depth in secure software development, application security testing, vulnerability management, and emerging AI security risks, including prompt injection, model abuse, insecure integrations, and data leakage. 

What We're Looking For

• In partnership with the AI-Application Security Architect, contribute to detailed technical design and operationalize security architecture, standards, and approved security patterns across application and AI-enabled systems. 
• Partner directly with engineering teams to embed security controls and secure-by-design practices into the software development lifecycle and AI lifecycle. 
• Evaluate, test, and perform technical validation of AI and application security tools, including AI red teaming, AI and MCP gateways, DAST, SAST, SCA, API security, and mobile application security capabilities. 
• Implement, integrate, tune, and scale security tooling across application and AI environments, including runtime monitoring, governance controls, testing platforms, and posture management capabilities, with a focus on coverage, signal quality, and operational effectiveness. 
• Leverage AI and automation to scale security operations, vulnerability management, and developer enablement through technologies such as Python, AWS services, and CI/CD pipelines. 
• Triage, validate, and prioritize vulnerabilities identified through application and AI security tools, assess risk in business and technical context, and partner with engineering teams to drive timely remediation. 
• Provide hands-on guidance to developers, including low-code and no-code users, on secure development practices, platform-specific risks, secure integration patterns, and remediation approaches. 
• Support the security review and risk assessment of AI platforms, models, agents, skills, MCPs, and third-party integrations by applying defined controls, documenting risk decisions, and helping establish scalable onboarding and governance practices. 
• Develop, maintain, and improve secure coding standards, implementation guidance, guardrails, and technical documentation for both application and AI use cases. 
• Stay current on emerging cybersecurity threats, particularly in AI security, and incorporate relevant mitigations into security tooling, engineering practices, and control design. 
• Contribute to a strong security engineering culture by mentoring junior engineers, sharing technical knowledge, and helping mature application and AI security practices across the organization. 

What You'll Bring

• Understanding of application and AI security principles, methods, and technologies, including AI-specific risks such as prompt injection, model abuse, insecure agentic integrations, and data leakage. 
• Strong analytical and problem-solving skills with the ability to identify and mitigate security risks across both traditional application and AI-enabled systems. 
• Strong verbal and written communication and collaborative skills. 
• Ability to effectively communicate technical topics to technical and non-technical audiences. 
• Ability to prioritize workload and consistently meet deadlines. 
• Security architecture, threat modeling, secure design. 
• Strong analytical and problem-solving skills. 

Education & Experience

• Minimum Required: Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Information Systems, Cybersecurity, Computer Engineering, Software Engineering, or a related combination of education and experience. 
• Minimum Required: 2+ years of information security or software development experience. 

Licenses & Credentials

• Preferred: CISSP, CSSLP, GIAC or similar. 

Systems & Technology