Principal IAM Engineer

Northwestern Mutual • Milwaukee, WI

13d • Hybrid

About The Position

The Principal IAM Engineer is the senior technical authority for identity services, responsible for designing, implementing, and governing enterprise-wide IAM capabilities across workforce, partner, and customer identities. This role combines deep hands-on engineering with architecture and leadership, driving the modernization of authentication, authorization, identity lifecycle, and privileged access controls across our cloud and on-prem environments.

Requirements

• 10+ years of experience in information security or infrastructure engineering, with at least 5 years of hands-on-keyboard experience with core IAM platforms.
• Deep expertise with the majority of our IAM stack
• Strong hands-on experience with Microsoft Entra ID and Active Directory as foundational directory services, and extensive experience implementing federation protocols (SAML, OIDC, OAuth2).
• Proven track record designing and implementing IAM solutions in hybrid multi-cloud environments, including the automation of provisioning, access reviews, and RBAC/ABAC models.
• Experience with secrets management solutions.
• Proficiency in at least one scripting or programming language (such as PowerShell, Python, or Java) to automate tasks and build custom connectors for our IAM tools.
• Excellent communication skills with the ability to translate complex technical concepts related to our IAM ecosystem for both technical and non-technical stakeholders.
• Exceptional sense of ownership and the ability to work with a limited set of requirements.
• Highly advanced ability to breakdown work to deliver value incrementally.
• Experience leading large-scale IAM programs.
• Prior responsibility as a technical lead or architect for IAM, including mentoring teams and influencing roadmaps beyond direct reporting lines.
• Demonstrated ability to balance security, usability, and operational efficiency, with a strong bias toward automation and measurable risk reduction.

Responsibilities

• Own the end ‑ to ‑ end technical design of IAM services, including identity lifecycle management, authentication, authorization, SSO, and privileged access controls, ensuring they are secure, scalable, and highly available.
• Lead design and implementation of IAM integrations for SaaS, on ‑ prem, and AWS cloud platforms, including federation (SAML, OIDC, OAuth), MFA, and Passwordless capabilities.
• Serve as the primary escalation point for complex IAM engineering issues; perform root ‑ cause analysis and drive long ‑ term remediation and hardening of IAM platforms and related services.
• Partner with security architecture, infrastructure, application, and HR/IT teams to align IAM solutions with enterprise security strategy, compliance obligations, and business objectives.
• Define IAM engineering standards, patterns, and reference architectures; guide other engineers in implementing secure onboarding patterns for applications into IGA, PAM, and SSO platforms.
• Lead modernization initiatives.
• Contribute to audits, risk assessments, and regulatory reviews by providing technical evidence, designing compensating controls, and closing identified IAM control gaps.
• Mentor and coach IAM engineers and analysts, promoting engineering excellence, documentation discipline, and a culture of continuous learning and improvement.

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Mid Level
• Education Level: No Education Listed
• Number of Employees: 5,001-10,000 employees