Cloud Security Architect - Federal / DoD Programs - Remote

UnitedHealth Group•Reston, VA

2d•Remote

About The Position

Optum Tech is a global leader in health care innovation. Our teams develop cutting-edge solutions that help people live healthier lives and help make the health system work better for everyone. From advanced data analytics and AI to cybersecurity, we use innovative approaches to solve some of health care’s most complex challenges. Your contributions here have the potential to change lives. Ready to build the next breakthrough? Join us to start Caring. Connecting. Growing together. Optum Serve is seeking a highly experienced Security Architect to lead security architecture strategy, solution design, and technical governance for regulated on-prem, cloud, and hybrid environments supporting federal and DoD healthcare missions. This role serves as a trusted advisor to engineering, platform, compliance, operations, and program teams, translating mission and regulatory requirements into secure, scalable architecture patterns. The architect will define and guide secure multi-cloud and hybrid solutions aligned with DoD IL4/IL5, FedRAMP Moderate/High, NIST SP 800-53 Rev. 5, and DoD RMF (DoDI 8510.01), while partnering closely with delivery teams responsible for implementation and ongoing operations. This role will also help define target-state architectures and transition strategies for modernizing legacy on-prem systems into compliant cloud and hybrid environments. The ideal candidate brings deep expertise in Zero Trust Architecture (ZTA), DevSecOps, federal ATO processes, cloud modernization, and emerging technologies such as AI/ML, with a proven ability to balance mission delivery, compliance, and security in complex, highly regulated environments. You’ll enjoy the flexibility to work remotely from anywhere within the U.S. as you take on some tough challenges. For all hires in the Minneapolis or Washington, D.C. area, you will be required to work in the office a minimum of four days per week.

Requirements

One or more active certifications such as CISSP, CCSP, CISM, Azure Security Engineer, or AWS Security, meeting DoD 8570/8140 expectations
7+ years of experience in cloud security architecture within regulated environments
5+ years of experience supporting FedRAMP-authorized systems, federal ATOs, or DoD authorization efforts
5+ years of experience designing secure solutions across Azure, AWS, and hybrid cloud environments
Experience leading or advising on the secure modernization of legacy on-prem systems into cloud and hybrid environments
Experience with application rationalization, cloud readiness assessments, dependency mapping, migration planning, and transition architecture
Experience with modernization strategies including rehost, replatform, refactor, replace, retain, and retire
Experience partnering across engineering, infrastructure, IAM, networking, application, data, compliance, and operations teams to drive secure architectural outcomes
Solid knowledge of DoD IL4/IL5, FedRAMP Moderate/High, NIST RMF, DoD RMF (DoDI 8510.01), NIST SP 800-53 Rev. 5, and Zero Trust principles
Demonstrated ability to balance security, compliance, mission delivery, and technical feasibility in complex environments
Solid written and verbal communication skills, including experience presenting to technical leaders, program stakeholders, and customer/government audiences
Ability to obtain and maintain a favorable federal suitability determination and/or security clearance
If you are offered this position, you will be required to provide extensive personal information to obtain and maintain a suitability or determination of eligibility for a Confidential/Secret or Top Secret security clearance as a condition of your employment
United States Citizenship

Nice To Haves

Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Computer Science, Cybersecurity, or a related field, or equivalent experience
5+ years of experience supporting DoD or civilian federal agencies
2+ years of experience supporting healthcare or life sciences environments
Experience modernizing monolithic, COTS, or highly integrated legacy enterprise applications in regulated environments
Experience with legacy platforms such as VMware, Windows/Linux server estates, enterprise databases, middleware, and on-prem identity services during cloud transformation
Experience designing or governing AI/ML security architectures in regulated environments
Experience participating in architecture review boards, technical governance forums, or enterprise architecture functions
Additional certifications such as CISSP-ISSEP, CySA+, GSLC, GCSA, FITSP-A, or equivalent

Responsibilities

Define and maintain security reference architectures, design patterns, and technical guardrails for cloud and hybrid environments supporting federal and DoD healthcare workloads
Partner with cloud engineering, infrastructure, IAM, networking, application, data, compliance, and operations teams to embed security requirements into solution designs and modernization initiatives
Serve as the security architecture lead for new capabilities, major enhancements, and platform changes by conducting architecture reviews and providing risk-based design guidance
Translate regulatory, mission, and business requirements into practical security architectures that enable delivery while maintaining compliance
Collaborate with enterprise architecture, program leadership, and customer stakeholders to align security strategy with platform roadmaps and system lifecycle planning
Lead the design of secure cloud and hybrid architectures aligned with DoD IL4/IL5, FedRAMP Moderate/High, NIST SP 800-53 Rev. 5, and DoD RMF (DoDI 8510.01) requirements
Establish architectural standards for network segmentation, encryption, key management, logging, resiliency, boundary protection, and secure service integration across Azure, AWS, and hybrid environments
Define hardening and configuration expectations using DISA STIGs, DoD SRGs, and CIS Benchmarks, in collaboration with platform and operations teams responsible for implementation and sustainment
Guide secure architecture decisions for systems handling PHI, PII, and CUI
Define secure target-state architectures and transition roadmaps for migrating legacy on-prem applications, infrastructure, and data platforms to Azure, AWS, and hybrid environments
Lead or advise on cloud readiness assessments, application rationalization, dependency mapping, and migration wave planning to determine appropriate modernization strategies such as rehost, replatform, refactor, replace, retain, or retire
Partner with application, infrastructure, IAM, network, and data teams to design secure migration patterns for legacy workloads, hybrid connectivity, identity federation, segmentation, data migration, resiliency, and observability
Establish security and compliance guardrails for interim hybrid states, including compensating controls for systems that cannot be fully modernized immediately
Guide modernization approaches such as containerization, API enablement, service decomposition, managed service adoption, and legacy platform decommissioning
Evaluate modernization impacts on authorization boundaries, control inheritance, shared services, and continuous monitoring to support ATO and compliance objectives
Advise teams on reducing legacy technical debt while preserving mission continuity, operational stability, and regulatory compliance
Lead adoption of security architectures aligned with the DoD Zero Trust Reference Architecture and OMB M-22-09, driving maturity across identity, device, network, workload, application, and data pillars
Partner with IAM and platform teams to define authentication, authorization, federation, privileged access, and service-to-service trust models aligned with NIST SP 800-63
Develop architecture patterns that support continuous verification, least privilege, micro-segmentation, and conditional access, while balancing security, usability, and mission needs
Define architectural requirements and secure design patterns for DevSecOps pipelines, including Infrastructure as Code (IaC), policy as code, SAST/DAST, software composition analysis, container security, secrets management, and software supply chain controls
Partner with engineering and platform teams to ensure security controls are integrated by design and validated through automation and continuous compliance mechanisms
Advise on the selection, integration, and architectural use of security tooling supporting vulnerability management, CSPM, DLP/DRM, configuration compliance, and monitoring, in collaboration with teams responsible for day-to-day operations.
Define security architecture and governance guardrails for the adoption of AI/ML and generative AI capabilities within regulated cloud environments
Partner with engineering, data, privacy, and compliance teams to design secure patterns for data ingestion, model hosting, inference APIs, retrieval integrations, and mission system connectivity
Evaluate and mitigate AI-specific risks including model poisoning, prompt injection, data leakage, hallucinations, model abuse, and third-party/model supply chain risk
Ensure AI-enabled solutions appropriately protect PHI, PII, and CUI and align with NIST SP 800-53 Rev. 5, NIST SP 800-171, and healthcare-specific compliance requirements
Incorporate AI security considerations into Security Impact Analyses (SIAs), Significant Change Requests (SCRs), and ATO documentation when AI capabilities materially affect system risk posture
Define logging, monitoring, and explainability expectations for AI components to support auditability, incident response, and continuous monitoring
Advise leadership and engineering teams on compliant and responsible use of generative AI, ensuring sensitive data is not exposed to non-authorized or non-FedRAMP AI services where prohibited
Apply emerging principles such as NIST AI Risk Management Framework (AI RMF 1.0) to support secure, responsible, and defensible AI adoption
Provide architecture leadership in support of ATO lifecycles, including control strategy, system boundary design, inheritance models, implementation approaches, and continuous monitoring alignment
Partner with ISSOs, compliance teams, system owners, PMOs, customer stakeholders, and assessors to develop defensible architectures that support FedRAMP and customer authorization objectives
Support Change Control Boards (CCB), architecture reviews, SIAs, and SCRs to ensure system changes are evaluated for security and compliance impact
Advise teams on evolving federal requirements, including FedRAMP Rev. 5, NIST SP 800-53 Rev. 5, FIPS 140-3, EO 14028, and software supply chain security expectations
Support FedRAMP package strategy and marketplace readiness activities in partnership with compliance, PMO, and agency stakeholders
Provide architectural guidance during security incidents, post-incident reviews, and root cause analyses to improve resilience and reduce future risk
Identify systemic security gaps and recommend roadmap improvements across platforms, applications, and shared services
Develop and maintain architecture artifacts, standards, decision records, and technical security documentation
Mentor teams on cloud security, Zero Trust, modernization, and AI security best practices