AI Security Engineer

Alpaca; Chicago (IL); Remote; USD 140,000 - 210,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Competitive Salary & Stock Options

Health Benefits

New Hire Home-Office Setup: One-time $

Monthly Stipend: $150 per month via a 

Job summary

Alpaca is seeking an AI Security Engineer to own technical security controls for how we use AI. You will secure AI agents, guardrails, and integrations, and help develop AI-powered security tooling across a distributed security team.

You will ensure consistent controls as AI use expands and collaborate with engineers, DevOps, GRC, and AI enablement groups. The role emphasizes identity and access controls for AI systems, security logging, threat detection, and incident response.

Qualifications

• 2+ years of security engineering, application security, or cloud security roles.
• Hands-on experience securing LLM applications, AI agents, or AI developer tools.
• Understanding of AI-specific risks, such as prompt injection, data leakage, excessive agency, and insecure tool use.
• Experience with identity and access controls for services and non-human identities, including OAuth, service accounts, and secrets management.
• Programming experience in Python or another general-purpose language.
• Experience with CI/CD security checks and cloud-native deployments.
• Experience with security operations or incident response.
• Strong written and verbal communication skills, especially when explaining risk to non-security builders.
• Comfortable working cross-functional and making pragmatic security decisions.
• Willing to participate in an on-call rotation.
• Experience building AI-assisted workflows for security operations.
• Experience building security telemetry for AI systems.

Responsibilities

• Define AI access controls and secure AI platforms, including guardrails and logging.
• Develop and enforce security requirements for internal AI applications and integrations.
• Review new AI applications for security risks and provide practical requirements for builders.
• Build AI-powered tooling to support detection, investigation, and response.
• Ensure telemetry and logging requirements for AI systems; enforce approved configurations.
• Lead AI-specific aspects of security incidents, such as data exposure or agent misuse.

Skills

Security engineering

AI security

LLM security

IAM for non-human identities

Python

CI/CD security

Security operations

Communication

On-call readiness

AI workflows

Security telemetry

Tools

Kubernetes

Python

CI/CD tooling

Job description

Who We Are

Alpaca is a US-headquartered, global leader in agent-first brokerage infrastructure for stocks, ETFs, options, crypto, fixed income, 24/5 trading, and more.

Amongst our subsidiaries, Alpaca is a licensed financial services company, serving hundreds of financial institutions across 40 countries with our institutional-grade APIs. This includes broker-dealers, investment advisors, wealth managers, hedge funds, and crypto exchanges, totalling over 10 million brokerage accounts.

Our global team is a diverse group of experienced engineers, traders, and brokerage professionals who are working to achieve our mission of opening financial services to everyone on the planet. We're deeply committed to open-source contributions and fostering a vibrant community, continuously enhancing our award-winning, developer-friendly API and the robust infrastructure behind it.

Alpaca is proudly backed by $400 million in funding from top-tier global investors including Portage Ventures, Spark Capital, Tribe Capital, Social Leverage, Horizons Ventures, Opera Tech Ventures, SBI Group, Derayah Financial, Unbound, Peak XV, Elefund, and Y Combinator.

Our Team Members

We're a dynamic team of 400+ globally distributed members who thrive working from our favorite places around the world, with teammates spanning the USA, Canada, Japan, Hungary, Nigeria, Brazil, the UK, and beyond!

We're searching for passionate individuals eager to contribute to Alpaca's rapid growth. If you align with our core values—Stay Curious, Have Empathy, and Be Accountable—and are ready to make a significant impact, we encourage you to apply.

Your Role

We are seeking an AI Security Engineer to own the technical security controls for how Alpaca uses AI. The scope includes identity for AI agents and automations, security requirements for AI tools and integrations, guardrails, and security logging. You will also assist in developing AI-powered security tooling.

You will keep those controls consistent as AI adoption grows, and you will work with the teams building with AI so security is part of the design.

This role reports to the Enterprise Security Architect and works closely with AI Enablement, Engineering, DevOps, GRC, and the wider Security team.

The Security Team is 100% distributed and remote.

Things You Get To Do

The core responsibilities of the AI Security Engineer are focused on AI access controls, secure AI platforms, guardrails, visibility into AI usage, and AI-powered security tooling.

AI Identity and Access Controls

• Agent Identity: Define how AI agents, bots, and automations authenticate, what they can access, and how their actions are attributed and audited.


• Tool Access: Own security requirements for AI tool integrations, including least-privilege access and credential handling.


• AI Assistant Controls: Define and enforce security settings for approved AI tools, including data handling and access policy.


• Least Privilege: Limit each agent and integration to the access it needs, and review that access when the integration changes.

Secure AI Platform, Tooling, and Response

• Security Requirements: Define security requirements for internal AI applications, including identity, data handling, secrets, and review of new integrations.


• Guardrails: Design and implement guardrails for AI applications and agents.


• Design Reviews: Review new AI applications and integrations for security risks, and give builders clear, practical requirements.


• Security Tooling: Assist Security Operations in developing AI-powered tooling that supports detection, investigation, and response work.


• Safe Use in Security: Apply the same identity, data handling, and logging requirements to security team AI tools as to the rest of the company.


• Telemetry Requirements: Define the security logging AI systems must produce, and work with Security Operations on detection.


• Approved Use: Maintain visibility into AI tool usage and confirm it follows approved configurations.


• Incident Support: Lead the AI-specific aspects of security incidents, such as agent misuse or data exposure through AI tools.


• On-call: Participate in the Security Operations on-call rotation after onboarding and cross-training.

Governance

• Standards: Turn AI security standards into technical controls.


• GRC Partnership: Partner with GRC on AI governance and provide technical evidence for control design.

Who You Are (Must-Haves)

• Excited about Alpaca’s mission and what we’re building


• 2+ years of experience in security engineering, application security, or cloud security roles


• Hands-on experience securing LLM applications, AI agents, or AI developer tools


• Understanding of AI-specific risks, such as prompt injection, data leakage, excessive agency, and insecure tool use (for example, the OWASP Top 10 for LLM Applications)


• Experience with identity and access controls for services and non-human identities, including OAuth, service accounts, and secrets management


• Programming experience in Python or another general-purpose language


• Experience with CI/CD security checks and cloud-native deployments


• Experience with security operations or incident response


• Strong written and verbal communication skills, especially when explaining risk to non-security builders


• Comfortable working cross-functional and making pragmatic security decisions


• Willing to participate in an on-call rotation


• Experience building AI-assisted workflows for security operations


• Experience building security telemetry for AI systems

Who You Might Be (Nice-to-Haves)

• Experience securing financial, trading, or other highly regulated platforms


• Experience securing enterprise AI coding tools and AI integrations


• Experience with policy-as-code and Kubernetes


• Familiarity with AI governance frameworks, such as the NIST AI Risk Management Framework or ISO 42001


• Ability to balance security rigor with operational efficiency and business needs

How We Take Care of You

• Competitive Salary & Stock Options


• Health Benefits


• New Hire Home-Office Setup: One-time USD $500


• Monthly Stipend: USD $150 per month via a Brex Card

Alpaca is proud to be an equal opportunity workplace dedicated to pursuing and hiring a diverse workforce.

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