Principal IAM Engineer

Lantern•Dallas, TX

6d•Hybrid

About The Position

Lantern is the specialty care platform connecting people with the best care when they need it most. By curating a Network of Excellence comprised of the nation's top specialists for surgery, cancer care, infusions and more, Lantern delivers excellent care with significant cost savings to employers and their workforces. Lantern also pairs members with a dedicated care team, including Care Advocates and nurses, for the entirety of their care journey, helping them get back to good health, back to their families and back to work. With convenient access to specialists nationwide, Lantern means quality care is within driving distance for most. Lantern is trusted by the nation's largest employers to deliver care to more than 6 million members across the country. Learn more about us at lanterncare.com. Lantern is the specialty care platform, connecting people with high-quality, affordable specialty care close to home. We operate in a regulated healthcare environment (HIPAA, HITRUST, SOC 2), we handle protected health information at scale, and we are becoming an AI healthcare company, with AI adoption a top company priority. This Principal IAM Engineer is a senior level, individual-contributor role and the technical authority for identity at Lantern. In an organization where the security perimeter is effectively identity, you will own the identity control plane end to end, and you will determine who can reach PHI and under what conditions. You will set the identity standard, build the automation behind it, and hold the verification bar that other teams operate against. You will report to the CISO and partner closely with our IAM engineer and with the platform, cloud, and service delivery teams that execute alongside you. This is a hands-on principal seat, not a people-management role today, with a clear path to expand into a leadership role as the identity function grows. Our security philosophy is open by default, secure by design. Security exists to help the business move fast, safely, and the default answer is “yes, safely,” because guardrails are built into the platform, pipelines, and tooling rather than enforced by someone saying no. Gates exist only where risk genuinely warrants them, and even then they are automated, fast, and transparent. Location: Hybrid - at least 3 days/wk in our Dallas, TX offices

Requirements

Eight or more years in identity and access management, including principal- or staff-level ownership of an identity control plane.
Deep Microsoft Entra ID engineering, including Conditional Access policy design, phishing-resistant MFA, single sign-on, and federation across SAML, OIDC, and OAuth2, and verifying that enforcement takes effect across every access path, not only the expected one.
Identity lifecycle automation across cloud, SaaS, and privileged systems, with role- and attribute-based provisioning (RBAC/ABAC) and deprovisioning verified against an entitlement inventory.
Zero Trust identity design, including least-privilege, just-in-time (JIT) access, and risk-based or adaptive access controls.
Identity governance and administration (IGA) platform engineering, including privileged access management.
Automation and scripting (PowerShell, Python, or similar) to build lifecycle workflows and custom connectors.
Identity-as-code and policy-as-code practice, using Terraform with source-controlled change management (for example, GitHub).
Secrets and non-human identity (API keys, service accounts, workload identity), and maintaining an owner registry for them.
Key access governance and separation of duties in a model where another team operates the key management system.
The ability to act as the technical authority for a function without formal people-management authority, working directly to a CISO.
Bachelor’s degree in a relevant field, or equivalent professional experience.

Nice To Haves

Healthcare or another regulated environment where identity controls gate access to PHI.
Hands-on Saviynt with PAM, Azure PIM, and Keeper, or transferable depth in comparable platforms.
Experience remediating a Conditional Access enforcement gap or a deprovisioning failure, and making the structural change that prevented recurrence.
Passkeys and FIDO2, or phishing-resistant authenticator experience, aligned with NIST SP 800-63 Rev. 4.
Experience growing a technical scope into a broader leadership remit.
Microsoft Identity and Access Administrator certification, CIMP, or equivalent.

Responsibilities

Own the identity lifecycle: joiner, mover, and leaver provisioning and deprovisioning, automated from role- and attribute-based models (RBAC/ABAC), with deprovisioning verified against an entitlement inventory rather than assumed.
Own access management, including Conditional Access, phishing-resistant MFA, and privileged access on a Zero Trust model, with least-privilege by default, just-in-time (JIT) elevation, and enforcement confirmed on every access path rather than only saved.
Own directory and federation across Entra ID, single sign-on, SAML, OIDC, and OAuth2.
Own secrets and non-human identity, including API keys, service accounts, and workload identity, and maintain an owner registry for them.
Own key access governance and separation of duties in a model where another team operates the key management system.
Own identity automation and identity-as-code, building lifecycle and access controls as reviewable, version-controlled infrastructure (Terraform and policy-as-code) rather than manual configuration.
Own the identity-verification standard the service desk follows for password resets, MFA resets, and device enrollment. This is a hands-on control point, because helpdesk-initiated resets are a leading account-takeover vector.