AI CyberSecurity Specialist

Cybersecurity Specialist – AI Security & Agentic AI Research

North York, Ontario, Canada | 1-Year Contract, Ongoing | Hybrid

End Client: Leading Financial Services Client

About the Role

Our consulting client is seeking a Cybersecurity Specialist – AI Security & Agentic AI Research to research, prototype, evaluate, and operationalize emerging cybersecurity capabilities. This is a hands-on, research-oriented role for someone who can move from a research hypothesis to working code, proof-of-concept development, product evaluation, and enterprise recommendations.

The ideal candidate combines the mindset of a security researcher, software engineer, and emerging-technology evaluator. You will explore new cybersecurity capabilities, build agentic AI security harnesses, develop prototypes, assess emerging technologies, and provide technical recommendations to engineering teams, security leadership, and investment stakeholders.

Candidates with a strong academic research background, market research experience, and a Master's degree from a recognized Canadian university are particularly encouraged to be considered. A PhD is welcomed.

Responsibilities

• Build agentic AI security harnesses, prototypes, and POCs for new cyber capabilities.
• Research AI Security, Agentic AI, Application Security, quantum/PQC, blockchain, and other emerging technologies.
• Develop and integrate agents, LLMs, APIs, security tools, automation, and test environments.
• Evaluate new cybersecurity products and startups through hands-on testing, benchmarking, and technical due diligence.
• Validate vendor claims and assess security, scalability, integration complexity, and enterprise applicability.
• Help transition successful research prototypes toward operational use.
• Present technical findings and recommendations to engineering, security leadership, and investment stakeholders.
• Design experiments and evaluate emerging technologies to determine their practical enterprise applicability.

Required Skills / What You Bring

• Master's degree in Cybersecurity, Computer Science, AI, Computer Engineering, or a related field. PhD welcomed.
• Strong hands-on software development skills, particularly Python, Java, Node.js, Go, and C/C++, with experience in additional modern programming languages.
• Experience with LLMs, AI agents, tool calling, orchestration frameworks, APIs, cloud, containers, and security automation.
• Strong knowledge of Application Security, AI Security, vulnerability research, threat modeling, secure development, Network Security, Infrastructure Security, Security Architecture, and other security domains.
• Demonstrated ability to design experiments, build prototypes, and evaluate emerging technologies.
• Strong technical writing and presentation skills.
• Ability to translate research findings into working cybersecurity capabilities and practical enterprise recommendations.

Highly Valued Qualifications

• Research papers or presentations at recognized cybersecurity, AI, or systems forums.
• Experience with AI red teaming, autonomous penetration testing, agent security, or AI-native security tooling.
• Cybersecurity startup, founder, or early-stage product experience.
• Experience pitching to venture capital, corporate venture teams, accelerators, or investment stakeholders.
• Patents, open-source security projects, vulnerability research, or other demonstrated technical innovation.
• Certifications such as CISSP, OSCP, CSSLP, or equivalent.
• Academic research and market research experience, particularly in emerging cybersecurity technologies.