Senior AI Security Researcher

Leidos

. Design, develop, and prototype mission-aligned agentic AI frameworks and LLM-powered tools for secure AI/agentic AI operations, cyber defense, and autonomous cyber operations decision-making.

Posted 5/23/2026full-timeRemote • Alabama • 🇺🇸 United StatesSenior💰 $87,100 - $157,450 per yearWebsite

Tech Stack

Tools & technologies

Cyber SecurityNumpyOpen SourcePythonPyTorchScikit-LearnTensorflow

About the role

Key responsibilities & impact

Design, develop, and prototype mission-aligned agentic AI frameworks and LLM-powered tools for secure AI/agentic AI operations, cyber defense, and autonomous cyber operations decision-making.
Deliver working solutions across the TRL spectrum through rapid iteration from concept to prototype to support transition to enterprise and mission environments.
Apply secure AI practices including Secure-By-Design, Zero Trust, and red teaming approaches to ensure safety, trust, and resiliency in AI deployments.
Contribute to internal playbooks, training materials, and team-level capability development to scale innovation within the group.
Collaborate with a team of researchers within Leidos across a range of technology areas; identify synergies with other Leidos research and development efforts.
Develop solutions to difficult and unclear technical problems through deep analysis, collaboration with internal experts, and understanding of impact on end-product/solution.
Contribute to the design, implementation, and evaluation of AI/ML models for various applications.
Enhance and maintain analysis tools, including automation of current processes using AI/ML algorithms.
Work with project team members to identify relevant data sources, perform exploratory data analysis (EDA), evaluate data viability, and prepare datasets for AI/ML systems.

Requirements

What you’ll need

Bachelor's degree and 4-8 years of prior relevant technical experience in software engineering, engineering, data science, cybersecurity or cyber operations, or related field.
Hands-on experience building AI/ML systems, especially leveraging LLMs, multi-agent frameworks, or autonomous decision systems.
Familiarity with Frontier AI company capabilities (OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, etc.) and LLM orchestration and agent frameworks (e.g., LangChain, LlamaIndex, Haystack).
Experience with SecDevOps, DevOps, and nonhuman identities (NHI) and related technologies.
Understanding of secure architectures including Zero Trust (NIST 800-207, DoD ZT RA), Secure-by-Design patterns (CISA), or resilient systems design (NIST 800-160 v2r1).
Hands-on software development skills (Python preferred).
Understanding of machine learning algorithms, tools and platforms (NumPy, SciPy, scikit-learn, TensorFlow, PyTorch, or similar).
Must be a US Citizen with the ability to obtain and maintain a Secret security clearance.
Experience working independently and collaboratively in an innovative and fast-paced environment while delivering to deadlines.
Enthusiasm for innovation, experimentation, and self-development in the cybersecurity field.
Excellent interpersonal/communication skills, both verbal and written.
Preferred: Experience with adversarial machine learning, reinforcement learning, or multi-agent systems – especially in the context of cybersecurity operations.
Preferred: Experience evaluating, running, and/or fine-tuning open source models (e.g., Llama-3, working with Hugging Face models).
Preferred: Knowledge of federated learning or edge AI deployments for cyber-physical systems or operational technology.
Preferred: Experience with securing AI systems and AI components along with understanding of common frameworks such as NIST AI RMF, MITRE ATLAS, NIST AI 100-2.
Preferred: Demonstrated ability to rapidly prototype, iterate, and integrate in a collaborative research environment.
Preferred: Experience contributing to multi-disciplinary research teams and collaborating with technology vendors or academic researchers.

Benefits

Comp & perks

Health and Wellness programs
Income Protection
Paid Leave
Retirement

ATS Keywords

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Applicant Tracking System Keywords

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Hard Skills & Tools

AI frameworksLLM-powered toolsAI/ML systemsPythonmachine learning algorithmsautomationexploratory data analysisadversarial machine learningreinforcement learningmulti-agent systems

Soft Skills

collaborationinnovationcommunicationproblem-solvingself-developmentindependenceteamworkadaptabilitytime managemententhusiasm

Certifications

Bachelor's degreeSecret security clearance