Senior Cloud Security Engineer

Greystar•Columbia, SC

4d•$140,000 - $170,000•Remote

About The Position

The Senior Cloud Security Engineer is Greystar's hands-on subject matter expert on cloud security with strategic direction driven from the Senior Director, Information Technology - the person other engineers, architects, and leaders turn to when a design decision needs an expert, defensible answer on cloud security. This is not a role that reviews security after the fact: you will define what "secure" means for Greystar's cloud environments, set the standards other engineers build against, and represent cloud security directly in architecture design reviews. This is a builder's role - you'll be writing Terraform, configuring scanners, and fixing findings yourself, bringing deep technical execution to every part of the cloud estate you touch. You will partner closely with Information Security on enterprise architecture and identity standards, and with Cybersecurity Operations on detection tuning and incident response - bringing deep cloud-native expertise to those partnerships. You will also work directly with Greystar’s cloud Platform team engineers, Digital and AI developers, and Data Engineering team to make sure security is built into every design rather than bolted on afterward.

Requirements

Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Information Security, or a related field, or equivalent professional experience.
8+ years of experience in cloud security, security architecture, or cloud infrastructure engineering with a security focus, including demonstrated experience operating at a senior or principal level.
Deep, hands-on, expert-level experience securing Azure environments specifically - Azure Policy, Defender for Cloud, Sentinel, network security groups, and private endpoints - sufficient to set enterprise standards.
Solid working knowledge of AWS security services (IAM, Security Hub, GuardDuty, Config) sufficient to extend the rigor as the estate expands beyond Azure.
Experience embedding security into Infrastructure as Code - reviewing and hardening Terraform, ARM, or Bicep - not only auditing after deployment.
Experience defining and enforcing CI/CD pipeline security gates: SAST/DAST, container image scanning, dependency scanning, and secrets detection.
Expert-level understanding of cloud identity security - Entra ID, RBAC and least-privilege design, just-in-time access, and workload identity federation - deep enough to author an identity architecture.
Experience identifying and triaging cloud-specific security signals - anomalous sign-ins, managed identity misuse, unusual resource provisioning - sufficient to train and hand off to an incident response team.
Proficiency in scripting and automation (PowerShell, Python, or Bash) for security tooling and remediation at scale.
Excellent executive communication skills, with the demonstrated ability to defend a security position persuasively to senior technical leadership and to explain risk and remediation priority to both engineers and non-technical stakeholders.

Nice To Haves

Experience securing Databricks or data platform environments specifically, including Unity Catalog permissions models and data plane network isolation.
Experience with container and Kubernetes security (AKS), including image provenance and runtime security.
Familiarity with securing AI/ML and LLM-adjacent infrastructure - model serving endpoints, API key and secret exposure patterns, and agentic tool or third-party integration risk.
Direct experience mapping cloud controls to compliance frameworks (SOC 2, PCI DSS, CIS Benchmarks) in a real audit context.
Cloud security certifications (e.g., Microsoft Certified: Cybersecurity Architect Expert, AWS Certified Security - Specialty, CCSP) are a plus but not required.

Responsibilities

Define and own cloud security architecture patterns across cloud platforms - IAM guardrails, network segmentation, encryption standards, and secrets management - that the Infrastructure, Delivery, and Reliability tracks build against.
Own cloud Policy as code, including custom policy definitions, initiative assignments, and enforcement-mode governance across the cloud estate.
Establish secure-by-default reference patterns - landing zone security baseline, mandatory private endpoint use, default-deny network posture - in direct partnership with the Principal Cloud Engineer.
Partner with Information Security architecture so enterprise security policy translates correctly into cloud-native controls, acting as the translator of record between enterprise policy and cloud implementation.
Build and configure security tooling directly into CI/CD pipelines - standing up IaC scanning, container image scanning, and SAST/DAST tools hands-on alongside the Delivery team.
Own supply-chain risk review for third-party CI/CD integrations (GitHub Actions, MCP servers, external connectors), partnering with the Senior DevOps Engineer on remediation.
Work hands-on with application development and AI/ML teams to harden new cloud-native and AI workloads before they ship - configuring network isolation, securing model endpoints and API keys, and directly fixing findings during the build.
Personally triage and remediate critical pipeline findings, working directly in the codebase or configuration with engineering teams to fix root causes.
Define least-privilege RBAC and conditional access standards for cloud resources, partnering with Cloud Engineering on execution against established naming and group-based delegation conventions.
Own the just-in-time / privileged identity model for privileged cloud roles.
Own recurring access reviews and offboarding validation for service principals, managed identities, and human RBAC assignments across the cloud estate.
Partner with Cybersecurity Operations to tune Defender for Cloud recommendations and Sentinel analytics rules for cloud-specific signal, reducing noise and closing detection gaps as new services and connectors come online.
Recommend and help prioritize which cloud workloads and connectors get phased into Sentinel next, based on risk and blast radius across the estate.
Contribute cloud-specific escalation criteria to the runbooks the Operations Command Center and Cybersecurity Operations execute against.
Deliver initial and ongoing training to Cybersecurity Operations on cloud-native anomalies - managed identity misuse, unusual resource provisioning, anomalous Entra ID sign-ins - so detection and tuning quality improve over time.
Actively work down the CSPM and vulnerability backlog - rewriting Terraform to close a misconfiguration, migrating a plaintext secret to Key Vault, reconfiguring an identity - personally closing critical and high findings.
Map cloud infrastructure controls to relevant compliance frameworks (SOC 2, PCI, CIS Benchmarks) in partnership with enterprise Information Security, translating framework language into actual Azure/AWS configuration.
Serve as the primary cloud security voice in cloud architecture design reviews across Infrastructure, Application Development, and Data Engineering, providing the security assessment that informs whether a design moves forward.
Maintain security documentation, reference architectures, and runbooks specific to the cloud estate.

Benefits

Competitive Medical, Dental, Vision, and Disability & Life insurance benefits.
Low (free basic) employee Medical costs for employee-only coverage; costs discounted after 3 and 5 years of service.
Generous Paid Time off.
All new hires start with 15 days of vacation, 4 personal days, 10 sick days, and 11 paid holidays.
Plus your birthday off after 1 year of service!
Additional vacation accrued with tenure.
For onsite team members, onsite housing discount at Greystar-managed communities are available subject to discount and unit availability.
6-Week Paid Sabbatical after 10 years of service (and every 5 years thereafter).
401(k) with Company Match up to 6% of pay after 6 months of service.
Paid Parental Leave and lifetime Fertility Benefit reimbursement up to $10,000 (includes adoption or surrogacy).
Employee Assistance Program.
Critical Illness, Accident, Hospital Indemnity, Pet Insurance and Legal Plans.
Charitable giving program and benefits.