AI and Automation Engineer

Role Summary

The AI and Automation Engineer independently designs, builds, and operates complex AI automation for Security Services. You will own workflows from requirements through production, using large language models (LLMs), agents, and retrieval pipelines to reduce investigation effort and response time. You will make technical decisions within agreed architecture and help other engineers deliver reliable solutions.

What You Will Do

• Independently deliver automation for security service use cases, translating service needs into implementation plans.

• Design agent workflows and retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) pipelines grounded in security telemetry, threat intelligence, and analyst runbooks.

• Build reliable integrations with SIEM, SOAR, XDR/EDR, threat intelligence, and case management tools using secure REST APIs and event-driven interfaces.

• Define evaluation criteria; test factual accuracy, missed threats, false positives, and regressions before releasing changes.

• Implement least-privilege access, sensitive-data controls, output validation, and analyst approval for high-impact actions; test resistance to prompt injection from untrusted telemetry.

• Ship tested Python services through code review and CI/CD; own monitoring, troubleshooting, failure handling, and rollback for your workflows.

• Measure quality, effort reduction, workflow success, latency, and cost; use production evidence and user feedback to prioritize improvements.

• Coordinate delivery with Security Operations, Threat Research, Data Science, and DevOps; document designs and runbooks, and mentor engineers through reviews and pairing.
  

What You Will Bring

• 5+ years building production software, including 1+ year with LLMs, agents, or applied ML; 1+ year in or alongside a SOC or security team.

• Strong Python, REST API, and JSON skills; experience with a provider such as OpenAI or Anthropic, or with open-source models.

• Evidence of independently delivering complex retrieval pipelines, evaluation frameworks, or agent workflows from design into production.

• Ability to evaluate AI quality with noisy or incomplete labels, investigate failure modes, and explain model and retrieval tradeoffs.

• Experience integrating security platforms, handling telemetry securely, and applying SOC triage, investigation, and incident response concepts.

• Hands-on experience with Git, automated testing, CI/CD, cloud deployment, and production troubleshooting in AWS, Azure, GCP, or a comparable environment.

• Clear technical communication, sound judgment about when to escalate risk, and experience improving peers’ work through reviews or mentoring.

• Experience with SQL, Taegis, Sigma detection rules, or mapping detections to MITRE ATT&CK.

• Experience with vector databases, hybrid retrieval, model fine-tuning, or agent orchestration frameworks.

• Background in incident response, network traffic analysis, or Windows event log analysis.

• Experience with containerized or event-driven services, or open-source contributions in security or ML tooling.

In Canada, the base salary for this role ranges from $86,000 to $143,000. In addition to base salary, we offer additional compensation including bonus eligibility and a comprehensive benefits package. A candidate’s specific pay within this range will depend on a variety of factors, including job-related skills, training, location, experience, relevant education, certifications, and other business and organizational needs. ​

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What does remote mean at Sophos?
Sophos supports flexible ways of working, with many roles offered remotely and others working in a hybrid model. For remote roles, you may work remotely within the location specified in the job posting. Candidates must reside in and be authorized to work in that location. Our teams collaborate across locations and time zones, using technology to stay connected and deliver results.

Our Commitment To You

Sophos welcomes applicants with diverse experiences, perspectives, and backgrounds. We believe great ideas come from different ways of thinking, and we are committed to building a workplace where people can contribute, grow, and succeed.

We evaluate all candidates based on job-related skills, qualifications, and experience, and are committed to providing equal employment opportunities consistent with applicable laws and regulations.

If you require a reasonable accommodation during any stage of the recruitment process, please let your recruiter know. Any information shared will be used only to evaluate and provide the requested accommodation.