AI and Security Architect, Director

About this role

As a member of BlackRock's Cyber Architecture and Engineering organization, the Director, AI and Security Architecture will define and advance security strategy for AI-enabled systems across internal enterprise platforms and client-facing products. The scope includes LLM-powered applications, agent-based workflows, retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) pipelines, tool-driven integrations, and distributed cloud-native platforms.

The role combines deep technical expertise with cross-functional leadership. The Director will lead security architecture and risk decisions for strategic AI initiatives, establish scalable guardrails and secure development patterns, and partner with AI platform, product, engineering, architecture, and security leaders to identify risks early, drive remediation, and improve secure-by-default outcomes.

Director-level technical leadership role responsible for shaping AI security strategy, security architecture, standards, and secure-by-design practices across AI platforms, products, and emerging agentic systems.

Responsibilities

• Define and drive the AI security and security architecture roadmap across enterprise platforms and client-facing products.

• Establish firmwide security standards, reference patterns, guardrails, and governance requirements for AI systems, agentic workflows, and emerging AI technologies.

• Lead security architecture reviews, threat modeling, and risk assessments for strategic and high-risk AI initiatives.

• Drive security outcomes for LLM applications, RAG pipelines, agent workflows, model integrations, and tool ecosystems.

• Identify and drive remediation of risks including prompt injection, jailbreaks, unsafe tool usage, data exposure, insecure execution paths, and excessive agent permissions.

• Lead the security architecture strategy for AI-enabled systems and influence architectural decisions across engineering organizations and strategic platforms.

• Design and scale AI security guardrails, enforcement mechanisms, custom security tooling, and automated tests integrated into CI/CD and engineering workflows.

• Serve as the senior security partner to AI platform, product, engineering, architecture, and security leadership.

• Drive adoption of secure AI development and deployment practices across multiple engineering organizations.

• Lead complex technical investigations and response strategies involving AI-specific security risks and emerging threat vectors.

• Contribute to firmwide technology and security strategy, and represent AI and security architecture in executive, architecture, and governance forums.

• Mentor security engineers and strengthen technical capability across product security and adjacent engineering teams.

Requirements

• 10+ years of experience in software engineering, product security, application security, cloud security, platform engineering, or security architecture.

• Demonstrated experience leading large-scale security initiatives across multiple teams and organizational boundaries.

• Deep technical understanding of distributed, cloud-native platforms and modern software delivery practices.

• Demonstrated ability to write code or scripts to support security testing, tooling, automation, and technical analysis.

• Proven ability to define technical strategy, architecture standards, and scalable security operating models in complex enterprise environments.

• Strong experience with security architecture, threat modeling, secure design reviews, and practical risk reduction.

• Proven ability to influence senior engineering, architecture, product, and business leaders without direct authority.

• Ability to analyze complex systems and communicate technical risk, tradeoffs, and recommendations clearly and pragmatically to both technical and executive audiences.

Preferred Experience

• Experience building or securing enterprise AI/ML platforms and AI-enabled applications at scale.

• Experience with LLM applications, agent-based workflows, RAG pipelines, AI orchestration platforms, MCP integrations, or tool/plugin architectures.

• Deep familiarity with AI security risks including prompt injection, jailbreaks, tool misuse, data leakage, model supply-chain risk, and insecure agent behavior.

• Experience defining AI governance requirements, guardrails, secure deployment patterns, and control frameworks.

• Experience building security automation, policy enforcement, or CI/CD-integrated testing frameworks.

• Background spanning product security, application security, platform security, cloud security, and/or AI systems engineering.

• Experience leading security programs in highly regulated or large-scale enterprise environments.

• Cloud experience across Azure, AWS, or GCP.

For New York, NY Only the salary range for this position is USD$215,000.00 - USD$275,000.00 . Additionally, employees are eligible for an annual discretionary bonus, and benefits including healthcare, leave benefits, and retirement benefits. BlackRock operates a pay-for-performance compensation philosophy and your total compensation may vary based on role, location, and firm, department and individual performance.

For XDE-Regional - Delaware Only the salary range for this position is USD$186,500.00 - USD$232,500.00 . Additionally, employees are eligible for an annual discretionary bonus, and benefits including healthcare, leave benefits, and retirement benefits. BlackRock operates a pay-for-performance compensation philosophy and your total compensation may vary based on role, location, and firm, department and individual performance.

Our benefits

To help you stay energized, engaged and inspired, we offer a wide range of benefits including a strong retirement plan, tuition reimbursement, comprehensive healthcare, support for working parents and Flexible Time Off (FTO) so you can relax, recharge and be there for the people you care about.

Our hybrid work model

BlackRock’s hybrid work model is designed to enable a culture of collaboration and apprenticeship that enriches the experience of our employees, while supporting flexibility for all. Employees are currently required to work at least 4 days in the office per week, with the flexibility to work from home 1 day a week. Some business groups may require more time in the office due to their roles and responsibilities. We remain focused on increasing the impactful moments that arise when we work together in person – aligned with our commitment to performance and innovation. As a new joiner, you can count on this hybrid model to accelerate your learning and onboarding experience here at BlackRock.

Guidance on AI use for candidates

At BlackRock, AI has long been part of how we work – enhancing decision-making, improving operations, and helping us deliver better outcomes for clients. We encourage candidates to use AI thoughtfully to learn, prepare, and work more effectively; but during our interview process, we want to focus on getting to know you through your own experiences, thinking, and judgment. To support you, we’ve provided guidance on when and how to use AI during our hiring process so you can approach each step with confidence and showcase your best self.

About BlackRock

At BlackRock, we are all connected by one mission: to help more and more people experience financial well-being. Our clients, and the people they serve, are saving for retirement, paying for their children’s educations, buying homes and starting businesses. Their investments also help to strengthen the global economy: support businesses small and large; finance infrastructure projects that connect and power cities; and facilitate innovations that drive progress.

This mission would not be possible without our smartest investment – the one we make in our employees. It’s why we’re dedicated to creating an environment where our colleagues feel welcomed, valued and supported with networks, benefits and development opportunities to help them thrive.

To learn more about BlackRock, please visit Careers.BlackRock.com. We also encourage you to get to know us on LinkedIn, Instagram, YouTube, X, and TikTok.

BlackRock is proud to be an equal opportunity workplace. We are committed to equal employment opportunity to all applicants and existing employees, and we evaluate qualified applicants without regard to race, creed, color, national origin, sex (including pregnancy and gender identity/expression), sexual orientation, age, ancestry, physical or mental disability, marital status, political affiliation, religion, citizenship status, genetic information, veteran status, or any other basis protected under applicable federal, state, or local law. View the EEOC’s Know Your Rights poster and its supplement and the pay transparency statement.

BlackRock is committed to full inclusion of all qualified individuals and to providing reasonable accommodations or job modifications for individuals with disabilities. If reasonable accommodation/adjustments are needed throughout the employment process, please email Disability.Assistance@blackrock.com. All requests are treated in line with our privacy policy.

BlackRock will consider for employment qualified applicants with arrest or conviction records in a manner consistent with the requirements of the law, including any applicable fair chance law.