Principal Consultant, AI, Proactive Services

Summary

Join Palo Alto Networks as a Principal Consultant, Artificial Intelligence (AI) for Proactive Services, leading engagements on our AI team across a comprehensive portfolio of clients. Assess security risks in AI model and tool development and usage, acting as a technical key team member in client engagements. Advocate for cybersecurity risk management for clients and provide expert recommendations to enhance their AI security posture. Conduct comprehensive security assessments of AI systems and tools using various frameworks. Analyze model architectures, training data pipelines, and deployment environments to identify security gaps and vulnerabilities. Provide expert guidance on securing AI systems, including adversarial ML defenses, data poisoning prevention, and privacy-preserving AI techniques. Evaluate compliance with regulatory requirements and standards. Collaborate with client cross-functional teams, conducting stakeholder interviews and meetings. Stay updated on the evolving threat landscape in AI and contribute to developing innovative security solutions. Manage the team, monitor progress, track budget, and mitigate risks.

Requirements

• 6-9+ years of experience performing information security and risk assessments based upon industry-accepted standards
• Experience managing a team of consultants
• Experience with GRC tools, technology, and implementation
• Experience with security assessments/audits, drafting findings and recommendations, and prioritizing recommendations via quantitative risk scoring
• Experience with securing AI systems within cloud environments (e.g., AWS, Azure, Google Cloud)
• Experience with the lifecycle management of AI/ML models, including development, deployment, monitoring, and maintenance
• Strong verbal and written communication skills, particularly in conveying complex technical information to non-technical stakeholders
• Demonstrate a track record in strengthening existing and developing new client relationships
• Knowledge of computer forensic tools, technologies and methods
• Bachelor’s Degree in Information Security, Computer Science, Digital Forensics, Cyber Security or equivalent years of professional experience to meet job requirements and expectations

Responsibilities

• Conduct comprehensive security assessments of AI systems and tools using frameworks such as: MITRE ATLAS for adversarial tactics and techniques. OWASP Top 10 for LLMs to identify vulnerabilities in AI/ML models. NIST AI Risk Management Framework (AI RMF) for risk analysis and mitigation
• Develop and execute assessment plans tailored to foundational models, base models, and SaaS-based AI tools
• Analyze model architectures, training data pipelines, and deployment environments to identify potential security gaps and vulnerabilities
• Provide expert guidance on securing AI systems, including: Adversarial ML defenses. Data poisoning prevention. Privacy-preserving AI techniques (e.g., differential privacy)
• Evaluate compliance with regulatory requirements and standards (e.g., GDPR, HIPAA, or emerging AI-specific regulations)
• Collaborate with the client’s cross-functional teams, conducting stakeholder interviews, interactive workshops, and meetings with technical teams (data scientists, developers, DevOps engineers) and leadership teams to ensure a thorough understanding of system architecture, security requirements, and business objectives for the assessment
• Stay up-to-date on the evolving threat landscape in AI and contribute to the development of innovative security solutions
• Assisting Unit 42 Consulting Leadership in the development of Risk Management, Compliance, and Security standards within professional services
• Maintaining industry knowledge of and experience with cybersecurity best practices within theGovernance, Risk and Compliance (GRC) field to provide recommendations to proactively improve our client’s security posture and maturity
• Maintaining an understanding of the comprehensive threat intelligence landscape, key threat actors, MITRE ATT&CK TTPs, threat intelligence platforms, zero-day and other vulnerabilities, and other threat-led cybersecurity intelligence information
• Maintaining an understanding of Artificial Intelligence (AI) platforms and security best practices as well as threat to foundational, base, and other AI models and tools
• Leading or supporting cybersecurity risk assessments, audits, program and policy maturation and development, incident response tabletop exercises, configuration reviews, breach readiness reviews, and expert witness cases in accordance with industry best practices, regulations, standards, and company policies and procedures
• Maintaining the ability to work across multiple frameworks and regulatory standards including, but not limited to, NIST, CIS 18, ISO, GDPR, CCPA, SOX, and HIPAA
• Managing the team, monitoring progress, tracking budget, mitigating risks, and ensuring key stakeholders are kept informed about progress and expected outcomes while defining potential impacts and creating an effective mitigation strategy for multiple projects at a given time
• Identifying security risks and vulnerabilities while eliminating cybersecurity threats via stakeholder interviews, documentation review, and deep-dive testing and control validation
• Evaluating client controls for compliance with legal, regulatory, privacy, policy, standards and security requirements
• Effectively documenting and communicating audit, assessment, or compliance results, findings, and recommendations to stakeholders
• Effectively  communicating with external stakeholders in a professional manner
• Scoping new opportunities with prospective clients, including drafting statements of work and proposals
• Meeting travel requirements as needed to meet business demands (on average ~30%)

Preferred Qualifications

Former professional services and consulting experience

Benefits

• The compensation offered for this position will depend on qualifications, experience, and work location. For candidates who receive an offer at the posted level, the starting base salary (for non-sales roles) or base salary + commission target (for sales/commissioned roles) is expected to be between $151000 - $208000/YR
• The offered compensation may also include restricted stock units and a bonus