Principal Architect, DevSecOps

Wolters Kluwer•Coppell, NY

8d•Hybrid

About The Position

Wolters Kluwer is seeking a hands‑on, technically credible Principal Architect, DevSecOps to co‑lead the DevSecOps Center of Excellence and define the enterprise architecture, standards, and golden paths for secure software delivery. This role operates at the intersection of a mature engineering organization and established centers of excellence. The Principal Architect partners closely with DXG leadership and the GBS team to own CI/CD pipeline architecture, security integration, DevSecOps tooling strategy, and engineering adoption , while jointly governing the DevSecOps maturity model across the enterprise. This is not a coordination or program management role . The successful candidate actively builds solutions, develops reference implementations, and leads through deep technical expertise. Influence is earned through hands‑on contribution, architectural insight, and the ability to translate security and platform standards into practical, scalable engineering practices. The ideal candidate combines strong software and platform engineering skills with DevSecOps and security depth , enabling teams to deliver software that is secure, automated, and production‑ready by design.

Requirements

8+ years in software engineering, platform engineering, or security engineering — including at least 4 years in a principal, staff, or lead architect role with demonstrable enterprise-scale impact.
Proven track record designing and scaling CI/CD pipeline architecture and DevSecOps practices in large, complex engineering organizations, hands-on architecture and implementation ownership, not advisory roles.
Experience co-leading or leading a Centre of Excellence, engineering practice, or cross-functional standards body with real decision rights and measurable outcomes.
Demonstrated ability to operate as a peer with other senior technical leaders and CoEs — building standards collaboratively, resolving domain boundary conflicts constructively, and driving joint outcomes without subordinating other parties.
Hands-on experience building golden paths, internal developer platforms, or reference implementations that engineering teams have actually adopted at scale.
Practical experience integrating security tooling (SAST, DAST, SCA, secrets management) into CI pipelines and developer workflows as automated, low-friction controls.
Ability to operate with authority in a co-leadership model — making joint decisions, navigating disagreement constructively, and maintaining a productive partnership under pressure.
Strong communication skills across audiences: architectural decisions to engineering leadership, security requirements translated into engineering patterns, CoE representation at governance forums.
Willingness to lead by doing: write the reference implementation, pair with engineering teams, and demonstrate what good looks like rather than describing it.

Responsibilities

DevSecOps CoE Co-Leadership Support
Support DXE Leadership in Co-leading the DevSecOps CoE with the GBS Team, jointly setting the DevSecOps strategy, maturity model, capability roadmap, and governance framework for the enterprise.
Define and implement the CI, security integration, golden path, and engineering enablement dimensions of the CoE.
Establish and operate effective CoPs: shared decision protocol, clear escalation paths, and a transparent operating rhythm that prevents the CoE from becoming a coordination bottleneck.
Represent the DevSecOps CoE at Architecture CoE and cross-functional governance forums, ensuring DevSecOps standards are embedded in enterprise architectural governance, not maintained as a parallel track.
Operate as peer interface with the AppSec CoE, translating their security requirements and standards into DevSecOps implementation patterns, not redefining them.
Pipeline Architecture & Security Integration Outright ownership of the standards, architecture, and reference implementations
Define and maintain the enterprise CI pipeline architecture: build, test, security gate, artifact creation, and handoff standards that connect to the Ops team's CD domain.
Establish the integration seam between CI and CD, the standards and contracts that govern how a build artefact transitions from pipeline to deployment with security posture preserved across the boundary.
Define policy-as-code standards, approved toolchain configurations, and pipeline governance guardrails in collaboration with the AppSec CoE.
Produce authoritative reference architectures and design patterns for CI pipeline security that engineering teams and the IDP can implement directly.
Engineering Team Enablement & Adoption In Collaboration with the principal architect Developer Platform and the Engineering Enablement Team
Develop the enablement assets, playbooks, architecture decision records, worked examples, and onboarding guides that allow engineering teams to adopt DevSecOps standards independently and confidently.
Define and track DevSecOps adoption metrics by engineering domain; report progress against the CoE maturity model with transparency to engineering and technology leadership.
Provide hands-on architectural guidance to engineering teams working through complex adoption challenges direct support, not redirection to documentation alone.
Partner with the DevSecOps CoE to deliver structured enablement programs and community-of-practice activities that build DevSecOps capability across the organization over time.