Senior Agentic AI Security Engineer (Autonomous Systems)

AbbVie; North Chicago (IL); On-site; USD 141,500 - 268,500; Full time

Job summary

AbbVie is seeking a hands‑on senior IC to architect, build, and ship autonomous AI agent systems for security operations. You will influence technical direction, write production‑quality code, and drive security standards in a fast‑paced environment.

You will tackle high‑complexity problems, integrate AI capabilities with SIEM/EDR/SOAR tools, and publish technical guidance to shape organizational policy. This role offers opportunities to mentor engineers and advance security maturity across the

Qualifications

• Bachelor's Degree with 9 years’ experience; Master's Degree with 8 years’ experience; PhD with 4 years’ experience.
• Respective years of experience in cybersecurity, security engineering, or security research – with substantial hands‑on technical depth
• Strong software engineering skills – you ship production systems, Python required; additional languages a plus
• Deep expertise in at least two of: security operations, application security, threat intelligence, vulnerability research, detection engineering, offensive security, cloud security
• Demonstrated experience building AI agents and AI/ML‑powered security tools or automation that operated at scale
• Hands‑on experience with agentic coding tools (e.g., Claude Code, Cursor, GitHub Copilot, Aider, or similar) as part of your daily development workflow
• Track record of original technical work – published research, open‑source tooling, conference presentations, or equivalent evidence of independent technical contribution
• Ability to work at the intersection of security and AI: you understand both the security implications of AI systems and how to apply AI to security problems
• Experience developing technical standards, frameworks, or guidance that others adopted
• Strong written and verbal communication – you can explain complex technical concepts to both engineers and senior leadership, and you can write strategically about emerging technology risks at a level that shapes organizational direction

Responsibilities

• Architect and build AI agent systems for security operations – autonomous detection, investigation, response, threat hunting, vulnerability analysis, and risk assessment
• Tackle novel, high‑complexity problems: adversarial robustness of agent systems, secure agent‑to‑agent communication, guardrails for autonomous decision‑making in high‑stakes security contexts
• Develop frameworks, tooling, and patterns for building secure and reliable agentic AI systems – then use them yourself
• Conduct original research and experimentation on agentic AI applied to offensive and defensive security, translating findings into working code
• Build proof‑of‑concept exploits and adversarial tests against agentic AI systems to identify failure modes and inform defensive design
• Develop and publish technical guidance and policy for agentic AI security – grounded in systems you have built and broken
• Independently author security position papers on emerging technologies – strategic, high‑level documents that frame organizational thinking on new threat domains and drive downstream policy and technical guidance
• Serve as a subject matter expert and key driver of the AI Cybersecurity Maturity program, spanning application security, training, AI controls and infrastructure, AI discovery and inventory, operations and incident response, and policy and procedure development
• Integrate LLMs, custom models, and security tooling into agent architectures
• Evaluate and adopt emerging AI capabilities and determine their applicability to security problems
• Set technical direction for agent development practices, including evaluation frameworks, testing methodologies, and deployment patterns
• Mentor and elevate other engineers on the team through code review, design guidance, and technical leadership

Skills

Python

Security engineering

AI agents

Production code

Agent tooling

Effective communication

Security standards

Education

Bachelor's Degree

Master's Degree

PhD

Tools

Claude Code

Cursor

GitHub Copilot

LangChain

Aider

Job description

AbbVie is seeking a hands‑on senior IC to architect, build, and ship autonomous AI agent systems for security operations. You will influence technical direction, write production‑quality code, and drive security standards in a fast‑paced environment.

You will tackle high‑complexity problems, integrate AI capabilities with SIEM/EDR/SOAR tools, and publish technical guidance to shape organizational policy. This role offers opportunities to mentor engineers and advance security maturity across the