Lead Engineer AI Security – Security Architecture

Target; United States; Hybrid; USD 132,000 - 238,000; Full time

Job summary

Target is seeking a Lead Engineer on the Security Architecture team to collaborate with technical and leadership teams across Target Tech to ensure that systems are designed and built securely. You will identify security risks, develop mitigation strategies, integrate security controls, and design secure architectures for advanced platforms.

The role requires 7+ years in technology with cybersecurity expertise (InfoSec, AI/Cloud security), strong communication, and a focus on cross-team

Qualifications

• 4-year degree OR equivalent experience.
• Polyglot programmer across languages and platforms.
• 7+ years in technology with cybersecurity knowledge including Information Protection, AI Security and/or Cloud Security.
• Demonstrated curiosity and ability to learn.
• Expertise in containerization technologies and tools.
• Solid understanding of genAI/ML and prompt injection patterns.

Responsibilities

• Identify security risks and develop mitigation strategies.
• Integrate security controls into overall system architecture.
• Evaluate architectures and design secure architectures for new and existing platforms.
• Provide guidance on secure coding practices.
• Collaborate across the enterprise with cross-domain stakeholders.
• Conduct full-stack architecture reviews of products and platforms.
• Design security reference architectures for cloud and on-prem environments.

Skills

Polyglot programmer

Security architecture

Containerization

Cloud security

GenAI/ML awareness

Cross-team collaboration

Education

4-year degree or equivalent experience

Tools

GCP security products (VPC Service Controls, Cloud Armor)

Vertex AI

SCC / Wiz (optional)

Job description

The pay range is $132,000.00 - $238,000.00

Pay is based on several factors which vary based on position. These include labor markets and in some instances may include education, work experience and certifications. In addition to your pay, Target cares about and invests in you as a team member, so that you can take care of yourself and your family.

Target offers eligible team members and their dependents comprehensive health benefits and programs, which may include medical, vision, dental, life insurance and more, to help you and your family take care of your whole selves.

Other benefits for eligible team members include:

• 401(k)
• employee discount
• short term disability
• long term disability
• paid sick leave
• paid national holidays
• paid vacation

Find competitive benefits from financial and education to well-being and beyond at https://corporate.target.com/careers/benefits.

About Us

Working at Target means helping all families discover the joy of everyday life. We bring that vision to life through our values and culture. Learn more about Target here. Target is one of the world's most recognized brands and one of America's leading retailers. But behind the brand our guests love, is a culture of continual innovation and right now, we are up to big things! Target's security team is a place where innovation happens daily.

Interested in a culture that combines ongoing learning, engineering excellence, and stellar outcomes? We are too - that's why we work here.

Join our team to improve Target's security and move the business forward.

Title and Team

As a Lead Engineer on the Security Architecture team, you’ll collaborate with technical and leadership teams across Target Tech to ensure that systems are designed and built securely.

Responsibilities

You will identify relevant security risks, develop appropriate mitigation strategies, integrate security functions and controls into the overall system architecture, evaluate and provide feedback on proposed architectures, and design secure architecture.

This role is highly technical, and you bring a deep understanding of security risks, controls, mitigations, and standards to a collaborative and advisory role, helping the rest of the enterprise as new platforms and systems are built, and as existing ones are modified over time.

Beyond the deep expertise, you have great interpersonal skills: our Security Architects are called upon to collaborate across the enterprise and have exceptional communication skills that enable open and cooperative partnerships.

Expect to:

• Collaborate with system designers to integrate security requirements into the design phase of IT systems
• Develop and maintain security architecture documentation, including security models, frameworks, and diagrams
• Ensure that security architecture aligns with the organization’s business objectives and regulatory requirements
• Understand security risks in order to identify potential vulnerabilities and threats
• Develop risk mitigation strategies and recommend appropriate security controls
• Design and implement security solutions, including firewalls, encryption protocols, and access control mechanisms
• Collaborate with development and operations teams to ensure secure creation and deployment of IT systems
• Provide guidance on secure coding practices
• Prioritize driving highly impactful changes that improve the business
• Conduct full-stack architecture reviews of products and platforms
• Provide expertise on information security for complex systems and applications in cloud and on-prem environments
• Design security reference architectures and create implementation/configuration guides
• Provide expertise on creation and implementation of security controls with an emphasis on cloud technologies
• Efficiently assess and communicate risk accurately while negotiating priorities with cross-domain stakeholders
• Collaborate with engineering teams to perform advanced security analysis on complex cloud systems, identifying gaps while contributing to design solutions and security requirements

Core responsibilities of this job are described within this job description. Job duties may change at any time due to business needs.

About You

4-year degree OR equivalent experience

Polyglot programmer comfortable in many languages across different platforms

7+ years of hands-on experience in technology, with extensive knowledge of cybersecurity domains including Information Protection, AI Security and/or Cloud Security (GCP strongly preferred)

Demonstrated curiosity and ability to learn

Expertise in containerization technologies and tools

Solid understanding of genAI/ML

Understanding of prompt injection and its various styles (direct, indirect, RAG poisoning, etc.) / Familiarity with OWSAP top ten for LLMs

Understanding of MCP auth patterns including dynamic client registration

Knowledge in RAG authorization patterns

Experience mitigating the security risks of local coding agents.

Seeks out cross-team collaboration opportunities

Stays current on relevant technologies with self-directed learning

Excellent written and verbal interpersonal skills with strong presentation abilities

Proven history of effectively utilizing a variety of security tools and technologies across diverse environments.

The ideal candidate will not be limited to specific vendors or solutions but will possess the technical depth to comprehend and implement an end-to-end solution that aligns with our reference security architecture’s requirements

Good understanding of security management workflows in large enterprise organizations and complex environments

Has a good understanding of the current threat landscape and the challenges that most organizations are facing

Knowledge of security frameworks, standards, and best practices (e.g., NIST, ISO/IEC 27001)

Strong understanding of network security, cryptography, and secure software development

Experience with security technologies, such as firewalls, IDS/IPS, SIEM, and DLP

Excellent analytical, problem-solving, and communication skills

Preferred:

• GCP native security product experience (VPC Service Controls, Organization constraints, Cloud Armor, NextGen Firewall etc.)
• Experience with Google SCC or Wiz is a plus
• Vertex AI experience
• AWS or Azure experience

Work Arrangement

This position may be considered for a Remote or Hybrid (known internally at Target as "Flex for Your Day") work arrangement based on Target's needs.

A Remote work arrangement means the team member works full-time from home or an alternate location that's not a Target location, does not have a desk at a Target location and may travel to HQ up to 4 times a year.

A Hybrid/Flex for Your Day work arrangement means the team member's core role may be performed either remote or onsite at a Target location depending upon what your role, team and tasks require for that day.

Work duties cannot be performed outside of the country of the primary work location, unless otherwise prescribed by Target.

Benefits Eligibility

Please paste this url into your preferred browser to learn about benefits eligibility for this role: https://tgt.biz/BenefitsForYou_E

Accommodations

Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) In compliance with state and federal laws, Target will make reasonable accommodations for applicants with disabilities.

If a reasonable accommodation is needed to participate in the job application or interview process, please reach out to [e-mail].

Non-accommodation-related requests, such as application follow-ups or technical issues, will not be addressed through this channel.

Application Deadline

Application deadline is : 11/13/2026

Company Vision

Target is one of the world's most recognized brands and one of America's leading retailers. We make Target our guests' preferred shopping destination by offering outstanding value, inspiration, innovation and an exceptional guest experience that no other retailer can deliver.

Target is committed to responsible corporate citizenship, ethical business practices, environmental stewardship and generous community support. Since 1946, we have given 5 percent of our profits back to our communities.

Our goal is to work as one team to fulfill our unique brand promise to our guests, wherever and whenever they choose to shop.

We'll contact you if you're selected for next steps. In the meantime, follow us at A Bullseye View for the latest news.