Sr. AI Security Engineer

McCarthy Holdings, Inc.; St. Louis (MO); On-site; USD 120,000 - 180,000; Full time

Job summary

McCarthy Holdings, Inc. is seeking a Sr. AI Security Engineer to secure AI-enabled products and services across design, deployment, and operation.

You will work with AI, engineering, architecture, legal, and compliance teams to mature the AI-security toolset and implement practical secure-by-design practices. The ideal candidate has hands-on security architecture/engineering experience with production AI-security, and can clearly explain complex risks to technical and non-technical audiences

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in cybersecurity, computer science, information systems, engineering, or equivalent
• Minimum five years of proven experience in security architecture, security engineering, architecture, or engineering role
• Production AI-security experience including assessment, governance, monitoring, or protection of AI applications
• Strong cybersecurity principles knowledge: identity governance, least privilege, data protection, risk assessment, incident response, security architecture
• Familiarity with OWASP LLM and AI risks (prompt injection, jailbreaks, data leakage, excessive agency)
• Understanding generative AI architectures, LLMs, RAG, AI agents, APIs, lifecycle risks
• Ability to explain risks and mitigations to engineers, product teams, business leaders
• Experience evaluating security controls, vendors, data handling practices, privacy considerations
• Ability to develop clear standards and communicate complex risks
• Strong analytical, written, verbal, collaboration, and problem-solving skills

Responsibilities

• Develop enterprise AI security standards, control requirements, and risk-based review processes
• Assess AI applications, models, agents, APIs, data flows before and after deployment
• Define security requirements across design, development, testing, deployment, operation, and retirement
• Evaluate identity, access, data protection, logging, monitoring, retention, and human-oversight controls
• Test AI systems for prompt injection, data leakage, unsafe tool use, and configuration drift
• Conduct threat modeling, architecture reviews, and control validation for AI-enabled solutions
• Review vendors, models, subprocessors, and data handling practices
• Configure, tune, and extend AI-security and monitoring tools
• Create patterns, playbooks, and guidance for engineering and product teams
• Monitor AI threats and translate into actionable improvements
• Collaborate with teams to embed security controls in AI workflows
• Communicate risks and actions to technical and non-technical stakeholders
• Promote responsible AI adoption with measurable controls and accountability

Job description

McCarthy Holdings, Inc. (McCarthy), is the holding entity for McCarthy Building Companies, Inc., the oldest privately-held national construction company in America, and Castle Contracting. McCarthy provides the crucial business infrastructure for these entities and connects the day-to-day operations to ensure seamless operations across the business. Repeatedly honored as a great place to work and healthiest employer, McCarthy is a 100 percent employee-owned company.

At McCarthy, we are committed to sustaining a culture that delivers great experiences for everyone. This begins with developing high-performing individuals and teams through our award-winning learning and development programs, best-in-class Total Rewards benefits, and our inclusive culture aligned with our core values: Genuine. We, Not I. All In.

• We Live Our Core Values: We do whatever it takes to deliver on our promises with honesty and integrity.
• We are Employee Owned: We are personally invested in building the things people need in our communities.
• We Feel Like a Family: We value genuine connections and help each other succeed in an inclusive environment.
• We are Builders: We respect the work we do and everyone who helps make it happen safely.

Position Summary

The Sr. AI Security Engineer will help secure the design, deployment, and operation of AI-enabled products and services. This role will help protect data, systems, users, and customers as generative AI, machine learning, and agentic technologies continue to evolve.

As a member of the Cybersecurity team, the engineer will work closely with AI, engineering, architecture, legal, and compliance teams. The organization has existing AI tools and controls in place, and this role will assess their effectiveness, recommend additional capabilities where needed, and mature the overall AI security toolset over time. Rather than building an AI-security stack from scratch, the engineer will configure, tune, validate, operate, and extend existing security solutions while helping teams apply practical secure-by-design practices.

The ideal candidate combines hands‑on security architecture or engineering experience, production AI-security experience, and the ability to explain complex risks clearly to both technical and non-technical audiences.

Responsibilities

• Develop and maintain enterprise AI security standards, control requirements, and risk-based review processes.
• Assess AI applications, models, agents, APIs, integrations, vendors, and data flows before and after deployment.
• Define security requirements for AI systems across design, development, testing, deployment, operation, and retirement.
• Evaluate identity, access, identity governance, data protection, privacy, logging, monitoring, retention, and human-oversight controls.
• Test AI systems and agent workflows for prompt injection, indirect injection, jailbreaks, data leakage, excessive agency, unsafe tool use, insecure integrations, and configuration drift.
• Conduct threat modeling, architecture reviews, security assessments, and control validation for AI-enabled solutions.Establish processes for AI security findings, incident response, exception management, remediation, and executive reporting.
• Review AI vendors, models, third parties, subprocessors, data handling practices, and material platform or configuration changes.
• Configure, tune, validate, operate, and extend existing AI-security, AI-governance, application-security, data-security, and monitoring tools.
• Support the evaluation and integration of additional capabilities where existing controls require enhancement.
• Create practical security patterns, reference architectures, playbooks, standards, and guidance for engineering and product teams.
• Monitor emerging AI threats, vulnerabilities, standards, regulations, and industry practices and translate them into actionable improvements.
• Partner with development and platform teams to integrate security controls into AI development and deployment workflows.
• Communicate technical risks, business impact, and recommended actions to both technical and non-technical stakeholders.
• Promote responsible AI adoption through measurable controls, clear accountability, and continuous improvement.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in cybersecurity, computer science, information systems, engineering, or a related field, or equivalent professional experience.
• Minimum five years of proven experience in an established security architecture, security engineering, architecture, or engineering role.
• Working experience handling AI security in a production environment, including the assessment, governance, monitoring, or protection of AI applications, models, agents, or integrations.
• Strong understanding of cybersecurity principles, including identity governance, least privilege, data protection, risk assessment, incident response, security architecture, and security governance.
• Familiarity with OWASP LLM and AI risks, including prompt injection, indirect injection, jailbreaks, sensitive information disclosure, excessive agency, insecure output handling, and agent or tool-use security.
• Practical understanding of generative AI architectures, large language models, retrieval-augmented generation, AI agents, APIs, and model or application lifecycle risks.
• Ability to explain how risks such as indirect prompt injection or excessive agency would surface in a real agent workflow and how those risks could be detected, validated, and mitigated.
• Experience evaluating security controls, technology vendors, data handling practices, privacy considerations, and third-party risk.
• Ability to develop clear standards and communicate complex technical risks to engineers, product teams, business leaders, and executives.
• Strong analytical, written, verbal, collaboration, and problem-solving skills.
• Sound judgment, personal integrity, curiosity, and a demonstrated commitment to protecting confidential information.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience with AI-security, application-security, cloud-security, data-security, DevSecOps, or security-monitoring tools.
• Experience performing AI red teaming, adversarial testing, penetration testing, threat modeling, or control validation.
• Familiarity with the NIST AI Risk Management Framework or comparable AI-governance frameworks.
• Experience integrating security controls into software development, cloud engineering, or platform operations.
• Familiarity with data classification, DLP, audit logging, security information and event management, and privacy-by-design practices.
• Relevant certifications such as CISSP, Security+, or a portfolio demonstrating comparable practical experience.

McCarthy is proud to be an equal opportunity employer, including disability and protected veteran status.