Director of Engineering - AI Security

The pay range is $168,000.00 - $303,000.00 Pay is based on several factors which vary based on position. These include labor markets and in some instances may include education, work experience and certifications. In addition to your pay, Target cares about and invests in you as a team member, so that you can take care of yourself and your family. Target offers eligible team members and their dependents comprehensive health benefits and programs, which may include medical, vision, dental, life insurance and more, to help you and your family take care of your whole selves. Other benefits for eligible team members include 401(k), employee discount, short term disability, long term disability, paid sick leave, paid national holidays, and paid vacation. Find competitive benefits from financial and education to well-being and beyond at About Us: Working at Target means helping all families discover the joy of everyday life. We bring that vision to life through our values and culture. Learn more about Target here. As a Director of Engineering, you will be responsible for the technology decisions that enable the business plan and will manage an engineering team in an agile environment. You will be responsible for providing guidance to engineers and making relevant technology solution decisions related to complex and/or new wave technology products. The key to success in this position is having a strong & innovative approach to problem solving, great technical leadership, excellent communication, flexibility, and a self-motivated working style with attention to detail. This role will require you to be hands-on on technology and will be expected to do design/development of highly scalable systems while leading the engineering teams. About this Team: Target Cybersecurity nurtures a culture of continual innovation and right now, we are up to big things! Target’s Cybersecurity team is a place where innovation happens daily. Interested in a culture that combines ongoing learning, engineering excellence, and stellar outcomes? We are too – that’s why we work here. Like everyone else, Target is figuring out how best to use GenAI tech, and of course, that also means figuring out how to do it safely. Help us create and build out a strategy, roadmap, and capabilities centered around making GenAI technologies secure. We are creating a new dedicated team to that end, and this role will lead that team. You’ll collaborate with technical and leadership teams across all of Target Tech to lead a team of security architects to ensure that systems are designed and built securely. You will lead your team to identify relevant security risks, develop appropriate mitigation strategies, integrate security functions and controls into the overall system architecture, evaluate and provide feedback on proposed architectures, and design secure architecture. This role is highly technical, and you bring a deep understanding of security risks, controls, mitigations, and standards to a collaborative and advisory role, helping the rest of the enterprise as new platforms and systems are built, and as existing ones are modified over time. Beyond the deep expertise, you have great interpersonal skills: our Security Architects are called upon to collaborate across the enterprise, and have exceptional communication skills that enable open and cooperative partnerships. You’ll use your skills, experience and talents to be a part of groundbreaking thinking and visionary goals for the AI Security domain. You’ll take the lead as you drive best practices and ensure development of high-quality security solutions/technologies through advocating and ensuring standards for common assets and framework components. You will help determine the technology choices, and build and manage a team of high caliber engineers. You will manage cross-product technical dependencies and handle conflict resolution. You will advocate for and ensure standards around technologies, frameworks, design patterns, processes and guiding values of the domain architecture and ensure all solutions/technologies adhere to all development & security standards. And you’ll inspire a strong culture of engineering through meetups and contribute to the technical community in forums/groups. Expect to: • Assist your team in driving technical decision making, adhering to Target platform architecture and other enterprise considerations. You’ll have a strong focus on team management and development. • Establish good stakeholder communication, work closely with partner teams, and help drive requirements while being a strong advocate of efficient and secure coding practices across engineers. • Build and manage a team of high performing architects and provide leadership, coaching, motivation and recommend staffing levels, operating procedures, tools, and systems for the team. • Provide career development and performance management to a team of architects. • Collaborate with system designers to integrate security requirements into the design phase of IT systems • Develop and maintain security architecture documentation, including security models, frameworks, and diagrams • Ensure that security architecture aligns with the organization’s business objectives and regulatory requirements • Understand security risks in order to identify potential vulnerabilities and threats • Develop risk mitigation strategies and recommend appropriate security controls • Design and implement security solutions, including firewalls, encryption protocols, and access control mechanisms • Collaborate with development and operations teams to ensure secure creation and deployment of IT systems • Provide guidance on secure coding practices • Prioritize driving highly impactful changes that improve the business • Conduct full-stack architecture reviews of products and platforms • Provide expertise on information security for complex systems and applications in cloud and on-prem environments • Design security reference architectures and create implementation/configuration guides • Provide expertise on creation and implementation of security controls with an emphasis on cloud technologies • Efficiently assess and communicate risk accurately while negotiating priorities with cross-domain stakeholders • Collaborate with engineering teams to perform advanced security analysis on complex cloud systems, identifying gaps while contributing to design solutions and security requirements Core responsibilities of this job are described within this job description. Job duties may change at any time due to business needs. About You: • Four-year degree in computer science or equivalent • 10+ years of hands-on experience in technology, with extensive knowledge of cybersecurity domains including Information Protection, Cloud Security, Networking Security, IAM, Automation and SIEM • 5+ years of managing teams with a strong track record of delivery for cross-functional products • Experience working in an agile environment (e.g. user stories, iterative development, etc.) including continuous integration and continuous delivery practices • Strong written and verbal communication skills with the ability to present complex technical information in a clear and concise manner to variety of audiences • Strong technical knowledge and background with an understanding of open-source frameworks • Strong sense of ownership and problem-solving skills • Polyglot programmer comfortable in many languages across different platforms • Demonstrated curiosity and ability to learn • Expertise in containerization technologies and tools • Domain expertise in AI/ML • Seeks out cross-team collaboration opportunities • Stays current on relevant technologies with self-directed learning • Excellent written and verbal interpersonal skills with strong presentation abilities • Proven history of effectively utilizing a variety of security tools and technologies across diverse environments. The ideal candidate will not be limited to specific vendors or solutions but will possess the technical depth to comprehend and implement an end-to-end solution that aligns with our reference security architecture's requirements • Good understanding of security management workflows in large enterprise organizations and complex environments • Has a good understanding of the current threat landscape and the challenges that most organizations are facing • In-depth knowledge of security frameworks, standards, and best practices (e.g., NIST, ISO/IEC 27001) • Strong understanding of network security, cryptography, and secure software development • Experience with security technologies, such as firewalls, IDS/IPS, SIEM, and DLP • Excellent analytical, problem-solving, and communication skills • Stays current on relevant technologies with self-directed learning • Excellent written and verbal interpersonal skills with strong presentation abilities This position will operate as a Hybrid/Flex for Your Day work arrangement based on Target’s needs. A Hybrid/Flex for Your Day work arrangement means the team member’s core role will need to be performed both onsite at the Target HQ MN location the role is assigned to and virtually, depending upon what your role, team and tasks require for that day. Work duties cannot be performed outside of the country of the primary work location, unless otherwise prescribed by Target. Click here if you are curious to learn more about Minnesota. Benefits Eligibility Please paste this url into your preferred browser to learn about benefits eligibility for this role: Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) In compliance with state and federal laws, Target will make reasonable accommodations for applicants with disabilities. If a reasonable accommodation is needed to participate in the job application or interview process, please reach out to View email address on click.appcast.io. Non-accommodation-related requests, such as application follow-ups or technical issues, will not be addressed through this channel. Application deadline is : 07/31/2026 Target is one of the world’s most recognized brands and one of America’s leading retailers. We make Target our guests’ preferred shopping destination by offering outstanding value, inspiration, innovation and an exceptional guest experience that no other retailer can deliver. Target is committed to responsible corporate citizenship, ethical business practices, environmental stewardship and generous community support. Since 1946, we have given 5 percent of our profits back to our communities. Our goal is to work as one team to fulfill our unique brand promise to our guests, wherever and whenever they choose to shop. We'll contact you if you're selected for next steps. In the meantime, follow us at A Bullseye View for the latest news. Our Benefits We care about and invest in you as a team member, so that you can take care of yourself and your family. Target offers eligible team members and their dependents comprehensive health benefits and programs, which may include medical, vision, dental, life insurance and more, to help you and your family take care of your whole selves. Other benefits for eligible team members include 401(k), employee discount, short term disability, long term disability, paid sick leave, paid national holidays, and paid vacation. Find competitive benefits from financial and education to well-being and beyond at