Sr. Principal AI Security Architect

About Northern Trust As a global leader in innovative wealth management, asset servicing, asset management and banking services, Northern Trust (Nasdaq: NTRS) is proud to guide the world’s most successful individuals, families, corporations and institutions. Since 1889, we have aligned our efforts with our three guiding Principles That Endure:
Service, Expertise, and Integrity. Together, they reflect the three cornerstones of business conduct which we strive to instill in our employees, whom we call partners, and to provide to our clients and the communities we serve worldwide. With more than 135 years of financial experience and over 24,000 partners, we serve the world’s most sophisticated clients using leading technology and exceptional service.

Role Overview Northern Trust is building an AI Security organization responsible for enabling the safe adoption of AI across the enterprise. We are seeking a Senior Principal AI Security Architect to serve as a senior technical leader responsible for defining the security architecture strategy, reference architectures, and governance patterns that support enterprise AI platforms, agentic systems, digital coworkers, and emerging technologies.

This is a highly hands-on architecture role for an experienced technical leader who enjoys building as much as influencing. The successful candidate will create architecture artifacts, define enterprise standards, develop reusable patterns, and guide complex technology decisions while partnering closely with senior leaders across Cyber Security, Enterprise Architecture, Engineering, and Emerging Technology.

This role combines strategic influence with deep technical execution. The Senior Principal Architect will help define how AI is securely adopted across the enterprise while remaining actively engaged in architecture design, technical reviews, and solution development.

Key Responsibilities Enterprise AI Security Strategy Define and evolve the enterprise AI security architecture strategy.

Establish architectural principles, guardrails, and standards for AI and emerging technologies.

Partner with Cyber and Technology leadership to align AI adoption with security, regulatory, operational, and business objectives.

Identify strategic architectural risks, capability gaps, and future-state requirements.

Drive long-term architecture roadmaps supporting enterprise AI adoption.

Architecture Leadership Serve as the senior security architecture lead for the firm's most complex and high-impact AI initiatives.

Lead architecture reviews involving AI platforms, AI agents, cloud-native services, data integrations, and emerging technologies.

Guide technical decision-making across multiple initiatives and programs simultaneously.

Provide thought leadership on security architecture, architecture governance, and secure design practices.

Mentor and develop architects across Cyber Security and Technology organizations.

AI Security Pattern Development Define enterprise security patterns for: AI agents and digital coworkers Agent identity and authorization models AI orchestration platforms RAG architectures MCP integrations AI gateways Enterprise AI observability Model governance and control frameworks

Create reusable reference architectures that reduce design complexity and accelerate secure delivery.

Develop architecture blueprints that teams can implement consistently across the firm.

Translate emerging industry practices into practical and actionable enterprise guidance.

Cross-Functional Leadership & Influence Build strong partnerships across:
Enterprise Architecture Security Engineering Identity & Access Management Application Security Security Operations Data Protection Cloud Engineering Technology Delivery organizations Emerging Technology teams

Influence architecture and investment decisions across multiple leadership forums.

Lead technical working groups and architecture communities of practice.

Act as a trusted advisor to senior leaders and executive stakeholders.

Emerging Technology & Innovation Evaluate new AI platforms, frameworks, and technologies.

Identify security implications associated with emerging AI capabilities and agentic architectures.

Guide technology selection decisions through an architecture and risk lens.

Shape the organization's perspective on future AI security capabilities and operating models.

Required Qualifications
12+ years of experience in security architecture, enterprise architecture, cloud architecture, software engineering, or related…