Job DescriptionDo you want to own the security posture of a globally distributed AI inference platform from the ground up?Are you driven to solve security challenges that span traditional infrastructure and the emerging AI threat landscape?Join the Akamai Inference Cloud Team!The Akamai Inference Cloud team is part of Akamai's Cloud Technology Group. We design, implement, and operate AI platforms enabling customers to run inference models with unmatched performance, compliance, and economics. As our Principal Security Engineer, you will be the primary security authority across the entire platformspanning infrastructure, runtimes, APIs, model lifecycle, and customer-facing services.
Partner with the bestAs a Principal Security Engineer, you'll define and drive security strategy end to end. You will lead security architecture decisions across multiple engineering teams, establish threat models and standards, and serve as the accountable owner for the platform's security posture. This role bridges traditional infrastructure security with AI-specific concerns including model safety, runtime isolation, and adversarial resilience.
As a Principal Security Engineer, you will be responsible for:
- Defining and owning the security architecture spanning Kubernetes infrastructure, inference runtimes, control plane APIs, and model lifecycle pipelines
- Establishing threat models, security standards, and hardening guidelines across all platform teams and ensuring consistent adoption through reviews and automated enforcement
- Leading security design reviews for critical systems including model serving environments, multi-tenant isolation, authentication and authorization frameworks, and data handling pipelines
- Driving AI-specific security initiatives including defense against prompt injection, model extraction, adversarial inputs, data poisoning, and model supply chain attacks
- Owning compliance readiness for regulatory frameworks (ISO27001, SOC 2, GDPR), and emerging AI governance standards, partnering with legal and compliance teams
- Developing and maturing the platform's security incident response capabilities including detection, investigation, and remediation playbooks for both traditional and AI-specific threats
- Collaborating with Akamai's broader security organization to align inference platform security practices with enterprise standards and share learnings across product lines
Do what you loveTo be successful in this role you will:
- Have 8 years of relevant experience and a Bachelor's degree or equivalent in Computer Science, Security Engineering, or a related field
- Demonstrate deep expertise across application security, infrastructure security, and cloud-native security with experience as a security technical lead or architect
- Show hands-on experience with AI/ML security challenges including model serving attack surfaces, prompt injection mitigation, and adversarial robustness
- Have proven ability to define security architecture and threat models for complex distributed systems spanning multiple engineering teams
- Demonstrate experience with compliance frameworks and the ability to translate regulatory requirements into engineering controls
- Show proficiency in Python, Go, or similar languages with experience building security tooling, automation, or detection systems
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CompensationAkamai is committed to fair and equitable compensation practices. For US based candidates only - the base salary for this position ranges from $132,100 - $237,900/year; a candidate's salary is determined by various factors including, but not limited to, relevant work experience, skills, certifications and location. Compensation for candidates outside the US will vary. The compensation package may also include incentive compensation opportunities in the form of annual bonus or incentives, equity awards and an Employee Stock Purchase Plan (ESPP). Akamai provides industry-leading benefits including healthcare, 401K savings plan, company holidays, vacation (in the form of PTO), sick time, family friendly benefits including parental leave and an employee assistance program including a focus on mental and financial wellness; Eligibility requirements apply.
