Security AI Operations Engineer

Thales is a global technology leader with more than 83,000 employees on five continents. With over 7,500 people in the UK, operating across defence, space, aerospace, and digital security, we help build a future we can all trust. Thales supports the security and stability of our nation by providing extraordinary technology to our customers, as well as delivering social value to the UK with our products and services.

Role Title: Security AI Operations Engineer

Organization: Value Added Services / Security Operations

Location: Belfast, Northern Ireland (Hybrid)

Role Overview

The Security AI Operations Specialist bridges automated AI systems and human security operations. This role is responsible for the day-to-day supervision, quality control, and execution of AI-assisted security workflows.

Working alongside the Security Automation & AI Engineering team, the Specialist manages "Human-in-the-Loop" (HITL) triage queues, maintains and updates knowledge bases feeding generative models, audits AI outputs for accuracy, and ensures prioritized investigation tasks are routed seamlessly to front-line security analysts and consultants.

Key Responsibilities

1. AI Workflow Supervision & Human-in-the-Loop (HITL) Routing

• Review and validate low-confidence alert enrichments, threat summaries, and triage recommendations generated by AI agents.
• Assign, dispatch, and track complex security investigations, policy changes, and incident response playbooks to appropriate Tier 2/3 analysts and consultants.
• Serve as the operational escalation point when automated pipelines encounter exceptions, edge cases, or platform integration errors.

2. Knowledge Base & Prompt Lifecycle Management

• Curate, clean, and organize internal runbooks, standard operating procedures (SOPs), threat intelligence, and product documentation stored in Amazon Bedrock Knowledge Bases and Amazon OpenSearch Service.
• Audit AI retrieval quality and document gaps in knowledge coverage that lead to model hallucinations or poor responses.
• Perform routine prompt adjustments and template maintenance, submitting structured enhancement tickets to engineering when underlying code changes are required.

3. Quality Assurance & Performance Auditing

• Regularly audit AI-generated outputs (incident summaries, triage context, customer reports) against human analyst benchmarks to ensure high fidelity and operational safety.
• Identify recurring false positives or hallucination patterns, collaborating directly with automation engineers to refine model guardrails and prompt evaluation datasets.
• Track and report on operational KPIs, including Mean Time to Respond (MTTR), task assignment velocity, and analyst AI adoption.

4. Team Enablement & Operational Feedback

• Train security analysts and services teams on prompt best practices, effective use of internal AI copilots, and feedback submission workflows.
• Gather front-line feedback and feature requests from security practitioners to help shape the automation engineering roadmap.

5. Sales

• Partner with the Sales Engineering team to develop and deliver Value-Added Services (VAS) proof-of-values (POVs), clearly demonstrating the business value and impact of these services.
• Collaborate with Account teams to accelerate time-to-value for Thales solutions among non-VAS customers, strengthening customer adoption, retention, and renewal outcomes.

Required Qualifications

• Education: Bachelor’s degree, in Computer Science, Cybersecurity, Information Technology, Engineering, or a related field. Master’s degree is a plus!
• Experience: 3–5+ years in a Security Operations Center (SOC), Managed Security Services (MSSP), IT Service Management (ITSM), or technical workflow coordination role, including 2+ years working with AI/Gen AI-enabled tools or workflows.
• Cybersecurity Foundation: Working knowledge of security operations, threat lifecycle, alert triage, WAF, API security, and common security frameworks (e.g., MITRE ATT&CK, NIST).
• AI & Workflow Tooling: Practical experience interacting with generative AI tools, prompt workflows, and enterprise ticketing/orchestration platforms (e.g., Jira, ServiceNow, PagerDuty, or SOAR platforms).
• Cloud & Search Interface Familiarity: Working comfort navigating the AWS Management Console (specifically Amazon Bedrock, Amazon OpenSearch Dashboards, and CloudWatch metrics).
• Communication & Documentation: Strong technical writing skills with experience authoring security runbooks, SOPs, and structured process documentation.

Preferred Qualifications

• Data & Query Skills: Basic scripting ability in Python or experience writing search queries (OpenSearch / Elasticsearch queries, SQL, or Lucene).
• Workflow Automation: Experience configuring no-code/low-code workflow tools, webhook triggers, or ticketing automation rules.
• Industry Certifications:
  • AWS Certified Security – Specialty or AWS Certified Solutions Architect – Associate/Professional
  • AWS Certified AI Practitioner or Machine Learning – Specialty
  • CISSP (Certified Information Systems Security Professional)
  • GIAC Certifications: GCIH (Incident Handler), GCIA (Intrusion Analyst), GCDA (Detection Analyst), or GASAE (AI Security Automation Engineer)

Success Metrics (KPIs)

Queue & Dispatch SLA - 95%+ of HITL exceptions and high-priority AI-flagged alerts assigned within defined SLAs.

Knowledge Base Freshness - 100% of operational runbooks reviewed and indexed on a recurring monthly/quarterly schedule.

Output Quality & Accuracy - Maintain >95% accuracy on AI-assisted triage outputs through continuous auditing and feedback loops.

Team Adoption & Satisfaction - High analyst satisfaction and engagement scores with AI-enabled workflows and copilots.

Applicants must be legally authorized to work in the UK at the time of hire. This position is not eligible for visa sponsorship or for assuming sponsorship of an employment visa now or in the future.

#LI-VJ

At Thales, we ensure equal opportunities, pay and working conditions for all. The benefits we offer include private medical insurance, buying or selling annual leave, cycle to work schemes, employee discounts, paid volunteering day, stocks and shares, annual bonus and much more depending on the role. Read more about our benefits here.
 

We are committed to creating a workplace where everyone feels valued for who they are and the unique strengths they bring. Discover more about our programmes, employee networks, wellbeing policies, and inclusive features here.

If this role isn’t quite right for you, we encourage you to join our talent community where your details will be shared with our recruitment teams for other potential opportunities. Join the Talent Community here.

Join Thales in the UK – Innovate with us and shape the future!