Qualcomm · 16 hours ago
Cyber Security Engineer, Principal
San Diego, CA
Full-time
Onsite
Senior Level, Lead/Staff
$184K/yr - $277K/yr
7+ years expQualcomm Incorporated is dedicated to protecting the company's use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) through its AI Cybersecurity Team. The Principal AI Security Engineer will lead the design, implementation, and governance of security measures across the organization’s AI ecosystem, ensuring that AI models and applications are secure and compliant with evolving standards.
Artificial Intelligence (AI)Generative AISoftwareTelecommunicationsWireless
Responsibilities
AI Threat Intelligence: Stay ahead of emerging threats targeting AI systems, including model inversion, data poisoning, prompt injection, and agentic AI misuse
AI Firewall & Gateway Oversight: Contribute to the design and implementation of AI Gateway controls to monitor and protect internal and external AI usage
Metrics & Compliance: Define and track AI security KPIs (e.g., model robustness, architecture review completion, policy adherence) and support compliance to standards
Cross-Functional Collaboration: Partner with data scientists, platform engineers, legal, and compliance teams to embed security into AI innovation workflows
Mentorship & Leadership: Serve as a technical mentor and thought leader across ISRM and engineering teams, helping to shape the AI security strategy
Design, develop and implement AI-powered security solutions
Troubleshoot and resolve AI security issues, collaborating with cross-functional teams as needed
Implement adversarial training techniques during AI application and agent development
Evaluate AI model, application, and agent robustness against common attacks
Conduct regular adversarial penetration tests on AI-powered solutions through AI/automation to build a scalable, repeatable process
Applies expert knowledge in one or more security-related areas (e.g., cryptography, hacker exploits, reverse engineering, etc.) to act as a technical lead on large projects/programs and ensures they are driven to completion
Leads a team to ensure that complex security risks and vulnerabilities are identified, understood, and prioritized; works with other teams to resolve issues and execute mitigation strategy
Stays up-to-date on latest trends to prevent potential attacks and gains buy-in from other areas to promote the adoption of new technologies and methods
Leverages expertise when conducting root cause analyses to find the cause of highly complex security issues in products that may involve multiple groups or processes. Presents findings to critical senior leaders and cross-functional stakeholders
Proactively identifies security risks to existing systems and infrastructure, and discusses risks with senior leadership outside of project team to construct solutions
Reviews technical documentation for large projects before publication and provides feedback as needed. Presents complicated technical information to senior leadership (e.g., Sr. Director and above)
Considers all aspects as lead of a design by determining which teams should get involved and which tests need to be conducted, reviewing risk areas and impact, and highlighting the right set of issues to share with senior leadership and the entire team
Collaborates with other Engineers to prioritize and address escalations that impact a large number of customers/stakeholders in order to create and carry out solutions that meet security requirements, updates senior leadership about critical security issues, and addresses and communicates about highly complex, security-related issues
Meets with high-priority and/or high-profile project teams and business stakeholders to identify security requirements as an industry expert, and makes recommendations based on the configurations, systems, and devices impacted by proposed enhancements or upgrades
Engages with business partners cross-functionally (e.g., testing group, product group, customers) to develop and execute a plan and system design for a large initiative
Leads high-risk security architecture reviews with cross-functional project members and business stakeholders to discuss security risks and identify additional changes to security architecture diagrams
Qualification
Required
Bachelor's degree in Engineering, Information Systems, Computer Science, or related field and 7+ years of cybersecurity-relevant work experience
High school diploma or equivalent and 8+ years of cybersecurity-relevant work experience
Frequently transports and installs equipment up to 40 lbs
Strong communication, analytical, and interpersonal skills
Ability to learn and grow in a rapidly evolving environment
Preferred
10+ years of experience in cybersecurity, with 3+ years in AI/ML security
Deep understanding of AI/ML technologies (e.g., LLMs, transformers, agentic AI) and associated security risks
Experience with secure ML pipelines, adversarial machine learning, and AI model evaluation
Familiarity with AI governance frameworks, regulatory trends (e.g., EU AI Act, NIST AI RMF), and ethical AI principles
Strong communication and leadership skills; ability to influence across technical and executive audiences
Advanced degree (MS/PhD) in Computer Science, Cybersecurity, AI/ML, or related field preferred
Benefits
Competitive annual discretionary bonus program
Opportunity for annual RSU grants
Highly competitive benefits package
Company
Qualcomm
Qualcomm designs wireless technologies and semiconductors that power connectivity, communication, and smart devices.
10001+ employees
H1B Sponsorship
Qualcomm has a track record of offering H1B sponsorships. Please note that this does not
guarantee sponsorship for this specific role. Below presents additional info for your
reference. (Data Powered by US Department of Labor)
Distribution of Different Job Fields Receiving Sponsorship
Represents job field similar to this job
Trends of Total Sponsorships
2025 (2013)
2024 (1910)
2023 (3216)
2022 (2885)
2021 (2104)
2020 (1181)
Funding
Current Stage
Public CompanyTotal Funding
$3.5M1991-12-20IPO
1988-01-01Undisclosed· $3.5M
Leadership Team
Cristiano Amon
President and Chief Executive Officer
I
Isaac Eteminan
CEO
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