Senior Authentication Engineer (Entra)

NBCUniversal•New York, NY

9d•Remote

About The Position

Join the NBCUniversal Operations and Technology (O&T) team and help drive strategy for the growing Identity and Access Management (IAM) service portfolio. The Authentication Engineer is responsible for the design, implementation, operation, security, and continuous improvement of enterprise authentication services that protect NBCUniversal’s workforce, applications, data, and digital assets. This role serves as a technical expert for identity authentication technologies, ensuring highly available, secure, and scalable authentication platforms across cloud, on-premises, hybrid, and SaaS environments. The successful candidate will partner with Identity and Access Management (IAM), Cyber Security, Infrastructure, Application Development, and Workplace Technology teams to deliver modern authentication capabilities, strengthen the organization’s security posture, and provide an exceptional user experience.

Requirements

5+ years of experience at the Engineer level implementing enterprise access management solutions.
3+ years of hands-on experience with Microsoft Entra ID authentication services.
Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in computer science, information security, a related field, or equivalent work experience.
Understanding of authentication protocols, including SAML 2.0, OAuth 2.0, OpenID Connect (OIDC), Kerberos, WS-Federation, and LDAP.
Demonstrated experience with Microsoft Entra ID, Active Directory, MFA technologies, federation services, Conditional Access, Identity Protection, and Privileged Identity Management.
Experience implementing and supporting Passwordless authentication solutions.
Understanding of cloud security and Zero Trust architecture principles.
Working knowledge of SIEM tools such as Splunk, including running reports and configuring alerts.
Ability to interpret complex designs and explain them at an executive level.
Knowledge of networking concepts including DNS, TLS/SSL, certificates, proxies, and load balancing.

Nice To Haves

2+ years of experience with scripting languages (e.g., PowerShell, Python).
Passionate about authentication, identity security, and emerging technologies.
Strong troubleshooting skills with the ability to solve complex authentication and federation issues.
Ability to translate business requirements into secure and scalable technical solutions.
Continuously researches and evaluates industry trends and best practices.
Experience with Azure, Google Cloud Platform (GCP), and Amazon Web Services (AWS).
Experience with large-scale identity verification solutions for enterprises.
One or more Azure or Microsoft Security certifications preferred, such as AZ-900, AI-900, AZ-500, SC-300, or AZ-305.
Knowledge of integrating AI agents with identity providers and applying governance to their access and lifecycle management.
Ability to apply AI-driven analytics to strengthen identity governance, enable intelligent access decisions, detect anomalous behavior, and optimize end-to-end IAM workflows.
Strong communication and presentation skills with the ability to engage technical and non-technical audiences.
Demonstrates ownership, accountability, and a customer-first mindset with a focus on security.
Influences without authority and builds strong partnerships across the organization.
Focused on service reliability, operational excellence, and automation.
Maintains composure and effectiveness during high-severity incidents and outages.
Uses data-driven decision-making to improve service performance and user experience.

Responsibilities

Design, implement, and manage enterprise authentication services, including Single Sign-On (SSO), Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA), Passwordless Authentication, Adaptive Authentication, and Federation services.
Administer and support Microsoft Entra ID Authentication services and related identity platforms.
Lead the deployment and adoption of modern authentication methods, including FIDO2 security keys, Windows Hello for Business, passkeys, certificate-based authentication (CBA), and passwordless solutions.
Develop and maintain authentication standards, reference architectures, procedures, and operational runbooks.
Strengthen the enterprise security posture by implementing authentication controls aligned with Zero Trust principles.
Partner with Cyber Defense teams to investigate authentication-related security incidents.
Analyze authentication telemetry, identify suspicious sign-in activity, and recommend mitigation strategies.
Evaluate and implement new authentication technologies, security enhancements, and industry best practices.
Ensure authentication platforms achieve high availability, resiliency, disaster recovery readiness, and operational excellence.
Monitor service health, performance, capacity, and adoption metrics.
Lead root cause analysis and problem management activities for service outages and incidents.
Drive automation initiatives to improve operational efficiency and service quality.
Design and support authentication integrations for SaaS, cloud-native, on-premises, custom, and third-party applications.
Collaborate with application teams to onboard applications using standards such as SAML, OAuth 2.0, OpenID Connect (OIDC), WS-Federation, and SCIM.
Contribute to enterprise authentication roadmaps and modernization initiatives.
Identify opportunities to eliminate legacy authentication methods and adopt secure modern alternatives.
Develop technical documentation, architecture diagrams, and implementation guidance.