Principal Enterprise Security Architect (remote)

A.C. Coy•Falls Church, VA

1d•Remote

About The Position

Tier One Technologies is seeking a Principal Enterprise Security Architect for a US Government client. This is a remote contract-to-hire position that can be originated in Falls Church, Virginia; Morrisville, North Carolina; or Eagan, Minnesota. No corp-to-corp candidates will be accepted. Selected candidates who do not already have the required clearance will be subject to a federal government background investigation to receive it. The architect will work within the Corporate Information Security Office (CISO) as a strategic and technical bridge among Security Operations, CISO leadership, and Enterprise Infrastructure teams. The role advises CISO Engineering on security architecture, helps align corporate initiatives with cybersecurity strategy, and maintains the enterprise security posture as infrastructure is modernized toward its target architecture. The environment includes multiple physical data centers and multi-cloud platforms. The position leads architecture design, threat modeling, remediation, security governance, and security-edge workstreams. It also develops the Enterprise Security Architecture roadmap and advances security intelligence automation, including the use of security intelligence and large language models to identify and address risk.

Requirements

A bachelor's degree from an accredited college or university in an applicable field is required, or four additional years of relevant experience in lieu of a college degree.
15+ years of experience with edge and perimeter protection solutions and designs, including IDS/IPS, WAF/WAAP, and SD-WAN remote security.
15+ years of hands-on architectural experience across PKI, NDR, NGFW, WAAP, EDR/XDR, SIEM, IDS/IPS, DNS protection, proxy/web proxy, PAC, load balancers, IP routing, and data center designs.
10+ years of progressive cybersecurity and infrastructure experience, including 5+ years in a dedicated architecture role directly influencing architectural decisions and priorities.
Expert knowledge of SASE/SSE convergence, including SD-WAN, CASB, Secure Web Gateways (SWG), and Zero Trust Network Access (ZTNA).
Strong experience with network service security and infrastructure, including DNS security, PKI and CAOps, and proxy.
Strong understanding of Zero Trust tenets and principles and their practical application.
In-depth understanding of security framework alignment, mapping infrastructure patterns to industry standards and best practices, specifically NIST CSF, NIST SP 800-53, and CIS Critical Security Controls.
In-depth understanding of large-scale hybrid enterprises, including assessing and securing environments spanning multiple physical data centers and multi-cloud environments across AWS, GCP, and Azure.
Experience developing and applying governance policies and standards for security tools, and managing security governance processes or workstreams while leveraging security intelligence to automate processes.
Required certifications: CCIE and CISSP.
Experience with security incident response activities.
Excellent communication skills.
Must be a US citizen or permanent US resident (Green Card holder).
Must be able to obtain Public Trust clearance.
Must pass drug screening, criminal history, and credit checks.
Must have lived in the United States for the past five years.
Must not have spent more than six months traveling outside the United States during the past five years; military service is excluded, but the exception does not include military family members.

Nice To Haves

An advanced degree in Computer Science, Cybersecurity, or a related engineering field is preferred.
Training in Microsoft Azure, GCP, AWS Fundamentals or Associate, Splunk, or x-AI Fundamentals.
Understanding of AI application development methodology.

Responsibilities

Serve as the strategic and technical bridge between Security Operations, CISO leadership, and Enterprise Infrastructure teams.
Collaborate with internal and external stakeholders to align corporate initiatives with cybersecurity strategies.
Maintain and continuously enhance the enterprise security posture through infrastructure modernization and evolution toward the target architectural state.
Identify structural security gaps in a hybrid environment spanning physical data centers and multi-cloud platforms, and engineer resilient risk-mitigation solutions using security intelligence and large language models.
Serve as the primary security architecture advisor to CISO Engineering, translating technical risks and structural vulnerabilities into measurable business-risk metrics.
Lead collaborative architecture design, threat-modeling, and remediation sessions with the CISO office, Network Engineering, Endpoint Management, vendors, and partners.
Develop and maintain the Enterprise Security Architecture roadmap, aligning security technology investments with CISO objectives and business requirements across edge and network defense, cloud security, transport security, endpoint protection, and certificate lifecycle management.
Use technical expertise and vendor solutions to advance enterprise security intelligence automation.
Establish, implement, and enforce infrastructure security governance frameworks, standards, and policies.
Manage and advise on planning and operational execution of CISO Engineering Security Edge workstreams.
Conduct proactive architectural reviews of global hybrid infrastructure to identify structural weaknesses, supported by continuous monitoring and ongoing security assessments.