Principal Software Engineer: AI Trust & Security Architect

Cybersecurity Jobs; San Jose (CA); On-site; USD 221,000 - 380,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Medical insurance

401(k) plan with Cisco match

Paid parental leave

Flexibility in time off

Job summary

Cisco Systems is seeking a Principal Software Engineer to set security direction for software platforms and services, focusing on application security and AI trust architecture. You will translate strategy into secure-by-default engineering practices across cloud-to-box products, with an onsite base in San Jose, CA.

The role requires 15+ years of experience and offers a comprehensive security-focused environment with opportunities to mentor engineers and shape security standards including MCP,

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related technical field.
• 15+ years of experience in software engineering and application security architecture.
• Experience with OWASP Top 10, OWASP API Top 10, CWE/SANS 25, or zero-trust patterns.
• Experience in identity and access governance: OAuth 2.0, OIDC, SAML, mTLS, SPIFFE/SPIRE, RBAC/ABAC/ReBAC.
• Experience in at least one backend language: Python, Go, TypeScript/Node.js, Rust, or Java.
• Experience in cloud-native security: Kubernetes, AWS/GCP/Azure, API gateways, service meshes.

Responsibilities

• Define and drive security architecture across software platforms and services.
• Translate security strategy into hands-on engineering execution for secure-by-default software.
• Lead cross-functional initiatives and mentor engineering teams.
• Engage with customers and leverage AI to improve threat prevention and lifecycle.
• Collaborate with application teams to design secure-by-default patterns.
• Implement MCP access boundaries and spec-driven security contracts.
• Mitigate AI threat vectors including prompt injection and data leakage.
• Design trust boundaries, sandboxing, and guardrails for autonomous agents and LLM tool-calling.
• Architect authentication/authorization with least-privilege scoping for MCP servers and integrations.
• Develop CI/CD security gates: SAST/DAST/IAST, SBOM tracking, image signing.

Skills

Security architecture

Threat modeling

Zero-trust

Mentoring

Security governance

Customer engagement

AI trust architecture

Hands-on security engineering

Education

Bachelor’s degree

Tools

Kubernetes

AWS

GCP

Azure

OpenAPI

TypeSpec

gRPC/Protobuf

OPA/Rego

Cedar

Semgrep

CodeQL

SBOM tracking

Job description

Cisco Systems is seeking a Principal Software Engineer to set security direction for software platforms and services, focusing on application security and AI trust architecture. You will translate strategy into secure-by-default engineering practices across cloud-to-box products, with an onsite base in San Jose, CA.

The role requires 15+ years of experience and offers a comprehensive security-focused environment with opportunities to mentor engineers and shape security standards including MCP,