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Agent guide: [/agents.md](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/agents.md). --- # Distinguished Engineer, AI Threat Defense - **Company:** Thomson Reuters U.S., Inc. - **Location:** United States - **Experience:** Expert - **Salary:** $228,000.0 - **Contract:** Permanent contract - **Skills:** Artificial Intelligence, Architectural Patterns, Cloud Computing Security, Cyber Security, Intrusion Detection and Prevention, Open Source Technology, Software Engineering, Software Vulnerability Management, AI Infrastructure, Large Language Models, Software Security, Cyber Threat Analysis, Cybercrime, Cyber Warfare, Static Application Security Testing - **Published:** September 20, 2026 - **Apply:** https://www.dice.com/job-detail/43b5c87c-e234-480d-ba27-5a5d1df205ec ## About the Role You are a deeply technical cybersecurity leader who can operate at a Distinguished Engineer level without relying on formal organizational authority. You enjoy solving ambiguous, high-impact problems, establishing technical direction, and turning complex security challenges into scalable, durable capabilities. You combine strong cyber defense expertise with a practical understanding of AI-enabled systems and how they are deployed, monitored, secured, and attacked. You can work comfortably across strategy and execution: shaping architecture, improving detection and response, partnering with product and engineering teams, and staying close to real-world operational outcomes. You build trust through technical credibility, collaboration, sound judgment, and a commitment to helping others succeed. You can communicate complex AI security risks and trade-offs clearly to engineers, analysts, architects, executives, customers, and regulators., * 12+ years of progressive experience in cybersecurity, security engineering, security architecture, threat detection, incident response, or a related technical field. * Experience operating as a Principal, Staff, Distinguished Engineer, or equivalent senior technical leader within a large, complex organization. * Strong hands-on experience in Cyber Defense, including detection engineering, security operations, threat hunting, security analytics, incident response, security architecture, or closely related disciplines. * A proven ability to establish technical strategy and deliver security capabilities that are adopted across multiple teams, systems, and operating functions. * Practical experience securing or governing AI-enabled systems, including LLM applications, AI infrastructure, models, agentic workflows, AI integrations, MCP, or comparable tool-use patterns. * Strong understanding of AI security risks, including prompt injection, data exposure, unsafe model output and downstream execution, agent and tool abuse, model and data poisoning, AI supply-chain risk, and AI-enabled social engineering. * Proven experience architecting or delivering AI-assisted detection and response capabilities within a mature 24/7 SOC, CIRT, or comparable cyber defense environment. * Experience strengthening an established security organization and driving adoption of security capabilities across SOC Operations, CIRT, Threat Detection Engineering, Vulnerability Management, and Attack Surface Reduction. * Ability to translate AI security risks into clear architectural patterns, engineering requirements, detection logic, and actionable incident-response practices. * Experience partnering with Product Engineering, Security Engineering & Architecture, and AppSec teams to embed security into development and production processes. * Exceptional communication and influencing skills, with the ability to work effectively across executive leadership, engineers, architects, analysts, incident responders, customers, regulators, and other stakeholders. * Demonstrated ability to mentor technical professionals and raise the technical capability of a broader security organization. * Experience operating within a regulated, multi-segment enterprise and partnering across legal, compliance, procurement, governance, engineering, and security organizations. * Experience in financial services, legal technology, professional information services, or another highly regulated industry is preferred. * Experience embedding significant technical capabilities into an established security operations organization is preferred. * Hands-on experience building or operating agentic AI systems across multiple LLMs, including open-weight, hosted, and frontier models, is preferred. * Experience applying AI within SAST, AppSec, vulnerability management, detection engineering, or security operations workflows is preferred. * Working knowledge of safely operating open-weight or less-restricted models for authorized internal security research is a plus. * Familiarity with frontier AI vulnerability research programs or comparable agentic vulnerability-discovery initiatives is a plus. * Active participation in AI security research, open-source communities, industry groups, conference speaking, or published research is a plus. * Relevant certifications in cybersecurity, cloud security, AI/ML security, or detection engineering are beneficial but not required. ## Description Thomson Reuters is enhancing its Cyber Defense capability in response to an AI-driven threat landscape that has fundamentally changed the speed, scale, and nature of cyberattacks. The Distinguished Engineer, AI Threat Defense is a senior individual contributor and technical authority within the Cyber Defense organization. Reporting to the VP of Cyber Defense, this role will shape how Thomson Reuters anticipates, detects, investigates, and responds to threats affecting AI-enabled products, services, and enterprise operations. This is a highly influential, hands-on technical role with no direct reports. You will lead through engineering depth, sound judgment, architecture, collaboration, and mentorship-working across SOC Operations, CIRT, Threat Detection Engineering, Vulnerability Management, Attack Surface Reduction, Cyber Threat Management, Product Engineering, Security Engineering & Architecture, and AppSec. Rather than creating a separate AI security function, you will evolve core Cyber Defense capabilities to address AI-specific threats and responsibly apply AI across established detection, investigation, and response processes. What You'll Do * Set the technical direction for AI threat defense across Thomson Reuters, ensuring AI-specific risks are addressed through the organization's core cyber defense strategy, architecture, engineering practices, and operating model. * Define how the organization monitors, detects, investigates, and responds to attacks involving AI-enabled products, LLM applications, agentic workflows, models, AI infrastructure, and associated integrations. * Develop defensive approaches for AI-specific threats, including prompt injection, jailbreaks and guardrail bypass, sensitive-information and system-prompt disclosure, unsafe downstream execution, excessive agent autonomy, unauthorized tool use, MCP exploitation, model and data poisoning, AI supply-chain compromise, model denial-of-service and denial-of-wallet attacks, model, prompt, and intellectual-property theft, and deepfake-enabled social engineering. * Partner with Product Engineering, Security Engineering & Architecture, and AppSec to establish secure, observable, and defensible patterns for AI-enabled applications, services, infrastructure, agents, and tool-use workflows. * Ensure AI security requirements, meaningful telemetry, and response readiness are designed into the software development lifecycle and production operating environment. * Strengthen existing security telemetry, detection engineering, monitoring, incident investigation, and response practices to identify and contain AI-related threats effectively. * Architect the responsible use of AI within the existing 24/7 SOC and CIRT operating model to improve triage, investigation, decision-making, response execution, and analyst effectiveness. * Develop detection content, security analytics, investigation methods, playbooks, and response workflows that enable SOC and CIRT teams to investigate and respond to AI-related security events. * Maintain appropriate human oversight, evidence quality, auditability, safeguards, and rollback mechanisms as AI capabilities are adopted within Cyber Defense operations. * Track emerging offensive AI capabilities, adversary tooling, threat-actor adoption, AI vulnerability research, and changes in the broader threat landscape, translating findings into practical defensive improvements. * Provide technical leadership and mentorship across Cyber Defense, raising organizational capability in AI security, detection engineering, threat analysis, and incident response. * Influence technical decisions through architecture reviews, technical standards, direct engineering collaboration, design guidance, and clear communication with technical and executive stakeholders. * Represent Thomson Reuters in relevant customer discussions, industry groups, regulatory engagements, and AI security communities. ## Related Videos - [Fighting the Next Wave of Cybercrime](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/videos/100331-fighting-the-next-wave-of-cybercrime) - [Thinking Differently - How to Make Money from Cyber Attacks & Cheats](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/videos/745-thinking-differently-how-to-make-money-from-cyber-attacks-cheats) - [Tackling the Risks of AI - With AI](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/videos/1690-tackling-the-risks-of-ai-with-ai) - [Deep Fakes: The Lies We Can’t See](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/videos/1187-deep-fakes-the-lies-we-can-t-see) - [Cyber Security: Small, and Large!](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/videos/259-cyber-security-small-and-large) - [The AI Security Survival Guide: Practical Advice for Stressed-Out Developers](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/videos/1015-the-ai-security-survival-guide-practical-advice-for-stressed-out-developers) ## Related Articles - [Coffee with Developers - Maria Apazoglou - Making AI understandable for all in production](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/magazine/475-coffee-with-developers-maria-apazoglou-making-ai-understandable-for-all-in-production) - [How to Become an AI Engineer](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/magazine/331-how-to-become-an-ai-engineer) - [Trustworthy AI Starts at Deployment: 5 Checks Before You Ship](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/magazine/753-trustworthy-ai-starts-at-deployment-5-checks-before-you-ship) - [Stephan Gillich - Bringing AI Everywhere](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/magazine/489-stephan-gillich-bringing-ai-everywhere) - [Navigating the AI Shift](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/magazine/629-navigating-the-ai-shift) - [Got AI ideas but no money? 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