Principal Security Engineer – AI & Copilot Data Protection

About the Role The Principal Security Engineer will lead the secure enablement of Microsoft 365 Copilot and enterprise AI capabilities within Northern Trust's Cyber Team. This role owns the end-to-end technical strategy, architecture, and operationalization of AI-driven data protection and compliance controls across Microsoft Purview, Defender, and M365 security services. The Principal serves as the organization’s deep technical authority on AI data protection, shaping control strategy and ensuring durable safeguards that reduce AI-driven data risk while enabling enterprise productivity.

What You'll Do

• Act as hands-on technical lead and design authority for Copilot and enterprise AI security controls across Microsoft Purview, Defender, and M365.
• Define and evolve the AI data protection reference architecture, mapping controls to AI threat models and regulatory expectations.
• Review and harden Copilot platform configurations, including:
• Web grounding and search behaviors
• Agents, plugins, and connectors
• Permission inheritance and identity context
• Transcripts, prompt history, and retention models
• Ensure controls are designed for default-secure behavior, least privilege, and fail-safe operation.
• Design, implement, and operate AI-related controls spanning security, compliance, privacy, M365, and risk to reduce AI-driven data risk while enabling productivity.

What We're Looking For

• Ability to own the technical vision and control strategy for AI and Copilot data protection, and define durable, repeatable patterns for securing LLM-enabled workflows that other teams can adopt.
• Willingness to operate with wide autonomy, minimal oversight, and direct influence across Security, Compliance, Privacy, M365, and Risk, with the ability to act as escalation point and design authority for complex AI security decisions.
• Proactive in anticipating AI threats and translating them into preventive controls; strong collaboration and communication across cross-functional teams.

Nice to Have

Compensation & Benefits