Staff Engineer, AI Security in Toronto

Join a Challenger. At EQ, we're remaking banking so every Canadian gets ahead, every day. Serving nearly 4 million Canadians from coast to coast, we offer a wide variety of financial services from banking and lending to trust and credit union solutions. We've been at this since 1970, challenging the conventions of traditional banking with smarter, faster, and more connected financial experiences.

The Core Responsibilities:

• Design, implement, and operate security controls for AI platforms, generative AI solutions, AI agents, machine learning environments, and supporting cloud services.
• Partner with the AI Centre of Enablement, AI Engineering, Data Engineering, and Technology teams to embed security requirements into AI solutions across the delivery lifecycle.
• Build and automate AI security guardrails and policy enforcement across approved and emerging AI technologies.
• Support security assessment and enablement for platforms and frameworks such as Microsoft 365 Copilot, GitHub Copilot, Azure AI services, and future enterprise-approved AI technologies.
• Implement data protection controls for AI training, grounding, and inference in partnership with Data Governance and Privacy teams.
• Configure and maintain identity, access, and model access controls for AI platforms, APIs, agents, and integrations.
• Develop and maintain security standards, implementation patterns, and technical guidance for the secure adoption of AI technologies.
• Review solution designs and provide practical security guidance to address risks, control gaps, and regulatory requirements.
• Work as a collaborative security partner across Cyber, Architecture, Data, Engineering, AI Engineering, and business teams.
• Perform and support adversarial testing of AI solutions, and work with engineering teams to prioritize and remediate security weaknesses.
• Develop security monitoring requirements and detection capabilities for AI-related security events.
• Assess security risk in the AI supply chain, including models, plug-ins, agents, and third-party AI services.
• Support governance, compliance, audit, and risk management activities related to AI.
• Create and maintain technical documentation, standards, procedures, and implementation guidance.
• Mentor engineers, architects, and delivery teams on practical AI security patterns, risks, and control implementation.

Let's Talk About You:

• A college diploma or university degree in computer science, engineering, information security, or a related technical field is required.
• 7-9 years of experience in cyber security, software engineering, cloud engineering, or platform engineering, including a minimum of 4 years in a cyber security role.
• Expert level knowledge of AI and cloud security controls.
• Experience designing, implementing, and supporting security controls within cloud-native and enterprise technology environments.
• Strong understanding of AI technologies, including generative AI and large language models (LLMs).
• Strong understanding of AI-specific security risks.
• Experience securing cloud platforms and services, preferably Microsoft Azure.
• Experience securing one or more enterprise AI platforms.
• Strong knowledge of application security, API security, identity and access management, and secure software development practices.
• Experience developing automation, integrations, or security tooling using modern programming and scripting languages.
• Experience working with CI/CD pipelines, Infrastructure-as-Code, containers, and cloud-native technologies.
• Strong understanding of security monitoring, logging, detection, and incident response concepts.
• Working knowledge of AI and security frameworks.
• Ability to review technical designs and provide practical security guidance.
• Curiosity and a continuous learning mindset.
• Pragmatic judgment with the ability to balance security risk, regulatory expectations, delivery timelines, and business value.
• Strong analytical and problem-solving skills.
• Demonstrated ability to influence technical decisions without direct authority.
• Relevant industry certifications are considered an asset.

Communication Skills:

• Provides technical information and guidance, conducts working sessions and design reviews.
• Produces clear documentation, standards, patterns, and implementation guides.
• Translates technical AI risk into business language.
• Collaborates as an embedded partner across teams.
• Coaches and mentors technical and non-technical stakeholders.
• Engages with vendors and external partners.

What we offer:

• Competitive discretionary bonus.
• Market leading RRSP match program.
• Medical, dental, vision, life, and disability benefits.
• Employee Share Purchase Plan.
• Maternity/Parental top-up while you care for your little one.
• Generous vacation policy and personal days.
• Virtual events to connect with your fellow colleagues.
• Professional development and comprehensive Career Development program.
• A fulfilling opportunity to join one of the top FinTechs.

The incumbent will be working hybrid and in office time will be spent working from EQ Bank’s additional office space located at 2200-25 Ontario Street, Toronto, ON.

Equity, Diversity & Inclusion: EQ is committed to building an inclusive, accessible environment where every employee feels valued, respected, and supported.

We provide a barrier-free recruitment process and work environment. If you require accommodations at any stage, we will work with you to ensure you can bring your best self to the process and beyond.

As part of our recruitment process, EQ uses AI to help screen, assess, and/or select applicants for this position. All candidates considered for hire must successfully complete a criminal background check and credit check.