AVP, AI Security Architect

Job Description:

Role Title: 2603010 AVP, AI Security Architect (L11)

Company Overview:

Synchrony (NYSE: SYF) is a leading consumer financing company that has been at the heart of American commerce and opportunity for nearly a century. Synchrony delivers credit and banking products that empower tens of millions of consumers to improve their financial lives and access what matters most. Leveraging innovative solutions that are shaping the future of retail commerce, Synchrony supports the growth and success of some of the nation’s most respected brands, alongside hundreds of thousands of small and midsize businesses, including health and wellness providers. Committed to excellence in service and culture, Synchrony is proud to be named as #3 as a Great Place to Work® in India and is honored to be ranked the #1 Best Company to Work For® in the U.S. by Fortune magazine and Great Place to Work®. For more information, visit www.synchrony.com.

Organizational Overview:

The Security Architecture organization enables Synchrony to innovate and grow securely by embedding security-by-design into technology solutions. We partner with engineering, platform, data, cloud, and business teams to translate security strategy and evolving threats into practical architecture requirements, reusable patterns, blueprints, and guardrails. Through risk-based architecture reviews, threat modeling, and scalable security guidance, the team helps protect Synchrony’s digital assets and customer data while supporting resilient, compliant, and efficient technology delivery. This role will contribute to advancing our AI Security Architecture capabilities, helping establish secure patterns and assurance practices for Generative AI, AI agents, and other emerging AI technologies.

Role Summary/Purpose:

The AVP, AI Security Architect will design and advance security architectures for Artificial Intelligence, Generative AI, Machine Learning, and emerging AI technologies. The role will translate enterprise security strategy and evolving AI threats into practical requirements, reusable patterns, and engineering guidance that enable secure innovation while protecting company, customer, and sensitive data.

Working across Cybersecurity, Technology, Data, AI/ML Engineering, Cloud, Risk, and Business teams, the architect will lead solution-level security assessments, contribute to enterprise standards, and embed security-by-design through threat modeling, control validation, testing, and continuous assurance across the AI lifecycle.

Key Responsibilities:

• Apply and help mature enterprise AI security architecture principles, standards, reference architectures, and guardrails.
• Design reusable security patterns for Generative AI, copilots, Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG), model and inference APIs, autonomous or agentic AI, and enterprise AI platforms.
• Lead security architecture assessments for complex AI solutions across cloud, SaaS, API, data, application, and enterprise technology environments.
• Partner with AI/ML engineers, application teams, cloud architects, data teams, and product owners to embed security throughout design, development, deployment, integration, monitoring, and retirement.
• Perform AI threat modeling using MITRE ATLAS and OWASP guidance, translating identified threats into actionable controls and engineering requirements.
• Define and validate controls for model access, identities, service accounts, secrets, APIs, prompts, training and retrieval data, outputs, plugins, tools, and third-party AI services.
• Assess risks such as prompt injection, data poisoning, sensitive information disclosure, insecure tool interaction, excessive agency, model manipulation, and AI supply-chain compromise.
• Contribute to automation of architecture reviews, threat modeling, vulnerability assessment, control validation, and security testing.
• Document architecture decisions, material risks, trade-offs, and recommendations for technical teams and senior stakeholders.
• Collaborate with Enterprise Architecture, Cloud, Application Security, Data, Responsible AI, Privacy, Legal, Compliance, Risk, and Business partners.
• Create implementation guidance and enablement that help engineering teams adopt approved AI security patterns consistently.

Required Skills/Knowledge:

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Cybersecurity, Information Technology, Engineering, or a related discipline, or equivalent relevant experience.
• Strong experience in cybersecurity, security architecture, cloud security, application security, or enterprise architecture, including delivery of complex security initiatives.
• Practical knowledge of modern AI architectures, including Large Language Models, RAG, vector databases, embeddings, model gateways, AI agents, orchestration frameworks, managed AI services, and model or inference APIs.
• Strong foundation in identity and access management, application and API security, cloud security, data protection, secrets and key management, DevSecOps, and software supply-chain security.
• Knowledge of AI security and risk frameworks such as the OWASP Top 10 for LLM Applications, MITRE ATLAS, NIST AI Risk Management Framework, and Zero Trust principles.
• Experience designing or reviewing enterprise architectures on AWS, Microsoft Azure, or Google Cloud Platform.
• Ability to convert technical risks into architecture requirements, reusable patterns, engineering guidance, and clear recommendations.
• Demonstrated ability to influence technical stakeholders, facilitate architecture decisions, and build alignment across teams.
• Strong written, verbal, presentation, and stakeholder-management skills.

Desired Skills/Knowledge:

• Experience securing platforms such as Amazon Bedrock, Azure OpenAI, Microsoft Copilot, or comparable enterprise AI services.
• Experience with AI red teaming, adversarial testing, model security assessment, prompt-injection testing, or AI vulnerability management.
• Familiarity with NIST AI RMF, MITRE ATLAS, OWASP guidance, ISO/IEC 42001, and evolving AI governance expectations.
• Ability to move effectively between detailed technical architecture, engineering execution, risk discussions, and stakeholder communication.
• Experience developing reference architectures, security blueprints, automated guardrails, and scalable control-assurance capabilities.
• Financial-services cybersecurity, regulatory, risk-management, or data-protection experience is a plus.
• Collaborative and execution-oriented approach, with a focus on simplification, automation, measurable outcomes, and responsible innovation.

Eligibility Criteria:

Bachelor's degree with 6+ years of experience in Cyber industry, security architecture experience including on-prem and hybrid environments and practical knowledge of modern AI architectures, including Large Language Models, RAG, vector databases, embeddings, model gateways, AI agents, orchestration frameworks, managed AI services, and model or inference APIs.

Work Timings: 2:00 PM– 11:00 PM IST
We are proud to offer flexibility at Synchrony. Our way of working allows you the option to work from home or workspaces in our Regional Engagement Hubs—Hyderabad, Bengaluru, Pune, Kolkata, or Delhi/NCR. Occasionally you may be required to commute or travel to Hyderabad or one of the Regional Engagement Hubs for in person engagement activities such as business or team meetings, trainings, and culture events.

For Internal Applicants :

• Understand the criteria or mandatory skills required for the role, before applying.
• Inform your manager or HRM before applying for the role on Workday.
• Ensure that your professional profile is updated (fields such as education, prior experience, skills) and it is mandatory to upload your updated resume (Word or PDF format).
• Must not be any corrective action plan (First Formal/Final Formal, LPP).
• Employees who have completed 18 months in the organization and 12 months in current role and level are only eligible.
• L9+ Employees can apply.

Grade/Level : 11

Job Family Group:

About Us

We’re on a mission to build a future where every ambition is within reach. We’re doing this by creating financial and technology solutions that move people forward. When you join us, whether you work in an office or from your home, you’ll experience support and encouragement at all levels of the organization— you’ll be provided with the tools and technology to grow your career here.