Applied AI Security Engineer

swift; Greater London; On-site; GBP 90,000 - 150,000; Full time

Job summary

Swift, the global leader in secure financial messaging, seeks a frontier AI security researcher to run AI/LLM–driven vulnerability discovery against SWIFT codebases and integrate AI-assisted detection into development workflows.

Required are hands-on AI/LLM security experience, strong coding skills across languages, solid knowledge of common vulnerabilities and tooling, and a proven ability to build pipelines and document decisions for peer review.

Qualifications

• Hands-on experience applying AI/LLM models to security testing.
• Ability to read and reason about large codebases across languages.
• Understanding of vulnerability classes and analysis tools.
• Experience building tools and pipelines from scratch.

Responsibilities

• Run frontier AI models against SWIFT's codebases to find vulnerabilities.
• Develop the methodology through experimentation.
• Build an AI-assisted detection pipeline, dedupe findings, route issues to remediation.
• Run evaluations of frontier models on real detection tasks and decide which to rely on.
• Integrate AI-assisted detection into SWIFT software development with existing tooling.
• Identify vulnerability classes unseen by current tooling and build detection approaches.
• Work within governed access and tooling controls.
• Document methodology for peer scrutiny.

Skills

AI/LLM security

Code reading across languages

Application security fundamentals

Scripting & automation

Technical evaluation design

Ambiguity tolerance

Technical communication

Education

Bachelor's degree in CS/IS or related

Masters degree an asset

Job description

ABOUT US

We're the world's leading provider of secure financial messaging services, headquartered in Belgium. We are the way the world moves value - across borders, through cities and overseas. No other organisation can address the scale, precision, pace and trust that this demands, and we're proud to support the global economy. We're unique too. We were established to find a better way for the global financial community to move value - a reliable, safe and secure approach that the community can trust, completely. We're always striving to be better and are constantly evolving in an ever-changing landscape, without undermining that trust. Five decades on, our vibrant community reflects the complexity and diversity of the financial ecosystem. We innovate diligently, test exhaustively, then implement fast. In a connected and exciting era, our mission has never been more relevant. Swift now has a presence in 200+ countries and legal territories to serve a community of more than 12,000 banks and financial institutions.

Education

University degree in Computer Science, Information Systems, or a related field; or equivalent work experience. Masters degree an asset.

Experience

Typically has 6 to 10 years of relevant work experience.

Domains

Job Responsibilities

• Run frontier AI models directly against SWIFT's codebases to find vulnerabilities that conventional tools miss
• Build the methodology for this work through direct experimentation.
• Build the pipeline that makes AI-assisted detection usable at scale: this includes writing the logic that validates findings, cuts duplicates, and routes real issues to remediation
• Run head-to-head technical evaluations of frontier models on real detection tasks, and let the evidence from testing decide which models and techniques SWIFT relies on.
• Build the integration that plugs AI-assisted detection into how SWIFT develops software, working alongside existing security tooling
• Find the vulnerability classes current tooling structurally cannot see, and build the detection approach to catch them ahead of where the rest of the industry is
• Work entirely within SWIFT's governed access and tooling controls
• Defend technical decisions under scrutiny from AI and Security peers, and document the methodology so it survives

Required Qualifications/Skills

• Demonstrated hands-on experience applying AI/LLM models to real security testing or vulnerability research
• Strong software engineering ability: can read, navigate, and reason about large, unfamiliar codebases directly, across multiple languages.
• Deep working knowledge of application security fundamentals: common vulnerability classes, exploit mechanics, and how static, dependency, and dynamic analysis tools actually work and where they fail.
• Proven ability to build working tools and pipelines from scratch, not just configure existing ones: scripting, automation, and integration work is core to this role
• Experience designing and running structured technical evaluations or experiments (model comparisons, A/B testing, or equivalent) and drawing defensible conclusions from the results.
• Comfortable operating with significant ambiguity and no established playbook; able to originate a technical approach rather than execute a known one.
• Clear technical communication: able to document and defend complex technical decisions to peer security engineers under scrutiny.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience working in a regulated or high-assurance environment (financial services, critical infrastructure, defense, healthcare, or similarly regulated sectors).
• Familiarity with multiple frontier AI model families (e.g., GPT-class, Claude-class) and their differing strengths for security-related tasks.
• Prior experience contributing to or building a security capability that didn't previously exist, rather than operating an established one

What we offer

We give you the freedom to be yourself. We are creating an environment of unique individuals - like you - with different perspectives on the financial industry and the world. A diverse and inclusive environment in which everyone's voice counts and where you can reach your full potential.

We are committed to an inclusive and accessible recruitment process. If you require a reasonable accommodation related to accessibility during your application or interview, please contact [e-mail] or indicate this in your application.

Please note that this mailbox is not monitored for general recruitment enquiries and should only be used for accessibility or accommodation-related requests (for example related to vision, hearing or neurodiversity).

All requests are confidential and will not affect your candidacy.