Security Engineering Lead – AI Pharma (Hybrid)

Formation Bio; New York, Boston (NY, MA); Hybrid; USD 186,000 - 232,000; Full time

Job summary

Formation Bio is seeking a Security Lead to oversee data, cloud, application, and corporate security, reporting to the Director of Technical Operations and collaborating with the CTO. The role is hands-on across AI-enabled systems and will build and manage a small security engineering team.

You will participate in an on-call rotation and leverage AI tools daily. Security at Formation Bio protects clinical and patient data, the AI systems we build, and the applications our teams create.

Qualifications

• 5+ years in security engineering or security operations with hands-on depth in data, cloud, and application security.
• Led incident response to resolution and made independent severity calls under pressure.
• Reads and writes code and has partnered with engineers on secure design, remediation, and pipeline security.
• Uses AI tools daily and understands how to secure AI-enabled systems.
• Hands-on with SIEM, EDR, vulnerability management, and security automation.
• Has owned security tooling, budget, and vendor relationships.

Responsibilities

• Lead incident response end to end, from triage and severity calls through containment, recovery, stakeholder communication, and post-incident reviews, and follow corrective actions through to closure.
• Stay hands-on in data, cloud (AWS and GCP), application, and corporate security, reviewing architecture, configuration, code, and pipelines with engineering teams and helping push fixes through to completion.
• Own data security for regulatedclinical and patient data and for data used by AI systems, including access, classification, handling, and sharing controls.
• Secure our AI platform and agentic workflows: agent and service identity, credential and secrets handling, MCP connectors and tool permissions, and guardrails for AI agents that act on data and systems.
• Set guardrails and review paths for citizen-built applications so builders keep moving while risk stays managed.
• Operate and tune SIEM, EDR, and vulnerability management, and keep alerting and paging sustainable for an on-call team.
• Use AI tools to build and maintain detection, triage, and security automation, and hold that work to the same review and testing standards as code.
• Verify that controls work through detection tests, tabletop exercises, and assessments, and confirm fixes before closing findings.
• Run a risk-based security roadmap and lead security projects from scoping through delivery.
• Manage the security tooling and services budget, renewals, and vendor performance, and report to the Director and CTO each quarter on posture, material risks, and decisions needed.
• Keep governance lightweight and practical (risk register, policies, exceptions, AI governance), with controls and automated evidence that support GxP, HIPAA, and 21 CFR Part 11 obligations and make audit readiness routine.
• Partner with engineering, Enterprise AI, infrastructure, IT, and CSV as a technical peer, and drive security awareness using observed risks and incidents.
• Hire, coach, and manage security engineers with clear expectations, documented development plans, and growth paths.

Skills

Security engineering

Incident response

Secure design collaboration

AI security tooling

Vulnerability management

Security automation

Budget & vendor management

On-call incident management

Tools

AWS

GCP

SIEM

EDR

Job description

Formation Bio is seeking a Security Lead to oversee data, cloud, application, and corporate security, reporting to the Director of Technical Operations and collaborating with the CTO. The role is hands-on across AI-enabled systems and will build and manage a small security engineering team.

You will participate in an on-call rotation and leverage AI tools daily. Security at Formation Bio protects clinical and patient data, the AI systems we build, and the applications our teams create.