Enterprise Cybersecurity AI Architect

Position Summary

Southern Company is seeking a highly skilled and visionary AI Security Architect to lead the secure design and governance of AI technologies across the enterprise.

Responsibilities

• Establishing and implementing an information security framework and technical architecture.
• Designing, developing, and implementing information security solutions.
• Establish and maintain security guardrails to support the safe implementation of AI and automation.
• Providing Cybersecurity expertise and consulting.
• Collaborate with cross-functional teams to integrate security best practices into AI development and deployment processes.
• Develop and enforce guardrails for AI agents used across departments, ensuring safe, compliant, and ethical use.
• Design and implement security architecture for AI platforms, models, and applications, including LLMs, agentic workflows, and custom AI tools.
• Lead threat modeling and risk assessments for AI systems in alignment with frameworks such as NIST.
• Architect secure deployment environments for AI agents, including sandboxing, access control, and runtime isolation.
• Implement defenses against common attack methods to models and data protection, such as data exfiltration, information disclosure, hallucinations, model poisoning, and excessive overreliance.
• Establish responsible AI frameworks for fairness, bias detection, and explainability.
• Deploy AI agents to automate and enhance cybersecurity operations (e.g., incident response, threat detection, vulnerability management).
• Partner with data science, DevSecOps, and application teams to embed security into AI development pipelines.
• Maintain current knowledge of Cybersecurity concepts, technologies, and practices.
• Monitor and respond to security incidents related to AI systems.
• Conduct regular security assessments and audits to identify vulnerabilities and implement corrective actions.
• Plan, coordinate, and lead Cybersecurity projects.
• Help internal customers understand and apply Cybersecurity concepts, processes, and technologies.
• Mentor others to strengthen Cybersecurity principles and best practices to outside operational areas.
• Create an environment that fosters accountability, innovation, and engagement at all levels.

Requirements and Qualifications

• Deep understanding of AI and machine learning concepts, algorithms, and frameworks, AI model architectures, and training pipelines, including LLM concepts, content safety, and data validation.
• Hands-on experience with Azure Databricks and Azure AI Services.
• Familiarity with securing LLMs, generative models, and agentic workflows.
• Strong analytical and problem-solving skills, an understanding of ethical and regulatory requirements related to AI security, and a continuous learning mindset.
• Ability to lead cross-functional technical teams and influence enterprise-wide decisions.
• Strong knowledge of cloud platform(s), such as Azure, AWS, GCP, and containerized environments.
• Hands-on experience designing, architecting, and implementing various information security tools/products such as PKI, Static or Dynamic Code Analysis, Next-Generation Firewalls, HSM’s, SIEM, Multi-Factor Authentication, IPS, Database Encryption, Privileged Identity Management, Cloud Posture Management, etc.
• Competency in APIs (Rest, Graph) and/or JavaScript/JSON/Kubernetes/SQL.
• Experience promoting security as a business enablement function using influence, metrics, documentation, strong verbal communication, and presentation skills.
• Working knowledge of cloud and traditional security network architectures.
• Ability to lead a project from concept through implementation and anticipate potential problems.
• Experience prioritizing and executing with minimal direction or oversight.
• Experience with information security frameworks such as: NIST, OWASP, etc.
• Experience with nation state, sophisticated criminal, and supply chain threats.
• Up-to-date knowledge of current hacking techniques, vulnerability disclosures, and data breach incidents.
• Experience with cybersecurity analysis and analytic tradecraft.