Senior Director, Identity Access Management & Data Security Engineering

Zelis • Boston, MA

5d • $185,000 - $234,650 • Hybrid

About The Position

The Senior Director of Identity Access Management (IAM) & Data Security Engineering is a senior leadership role responsible for the strategy, architecture, engineering, and operations of enterprise-wide identity, access, and data protection programs. The role will report to the Global CISO and part of the Cyber Leadership Team. Operating at the intersection of healthcare and financial technology, this leader will ensure that our platforms meet the stringent security and compliance requirements of HIPAA, PCI-DSS, SOC 2, and other applicable frameworks while enabling a frictionless experience for internal users, partners, and patients. This executive will build and scale a world-class engineering team, partner closely with Product, Infrastructure, Legal, and Compliance leadership, and serve as the subject-matter authority for IAM and data security across the organization.

Requirements

• 12+ years of progressive experience in information security, with at least 5 years in a senior leadership role managing security engineering teams.
• Deep hands-on expertise in IAM technologies: Okta, Azure Active Directory / Entra ID, SailPoint, CyberArk, or equivalent enterprise platforms.
• Demonstrated success delivering enterprise IAM and data security programs in highly regulated industries, specifically healthcare (HIPAA) and/or financial services (PCI-DSS, GLBA).
• Proven ability to architect and implement Zero Trust, PAM, CIAM, and data governance solutions at scale in cloud-native environments (AWS, Azure, or GCP).
• Strong working knowledge of identity protocols: OAuth 2.0, OIDC, SAML 2.0, SCIM, and FIDO2.
• Experience with data security tooling: DLP platforms, encryption key management, tokenization, and data discovery/classification.
• Demonstrated executive presence with the ability to communicate complex security concepts to C-suite, technical and non-technical stakeholders.
• Experience recruiting, developing, and retaining diverse, high-performing engineering teams.
• Familiarity with DevSecOps practices, security automation, and Infrastructure-as-Code security controls (Terraform, CloudFormation).
• Experience integrating acquired companies and harmonizing disparate identity environments post-M&A.

Nice To Haves

• Relevant certifications such as CISSP, CISM, CCSP, CISA
• Advanced degree (MS or MBA) in Computer Science, Information Security, or a related field.

Responsibilities

• Lead, mentor, and grow a multi-disciplinary team of engineers, architects, and analysts across IAM and data security domains both in the US and India.
• Define team structure, hiring roadmap, and career development frameworks to attract and retain top security engineering talent.
• Foster a culture of ownership, continuous learning, and security-first engineering.
• Serve as a visible advocate for security engineering practices across engineering and product organizations.
• Develop a multi-year IAM and data security roadmap aligned to business growth, M&A integration, and regulatory evolution.
• Own the end-to-end IAM strategy covering workforce identity, customer identity (CIAM), privileged access management (PAM), and machine/service identity.
• Architect and deliver Zero Trust access models, MFA enforcement, SSO, RBAC/ABAC policies, and identity federation across cloud and on-premises environments.
• Drive adoption of modern identity standards including OAuth 2.0, OpenID Connect, SAML, SCIM, and FIDO2/WebAuthn.
• Oversee privileged access governance and just-in-time access workflows for production healthcare and financial systems.
• Lead the evaluation, selection, and operationalization of IAM platforms (e.g., MFA, IGA, PAM, Non Human Identity etc.).
• Develop and execute a comprehensive data security strategy spanning data classification, data loss prevention (DLP), encryption at rest and in transit, tokenization, and secrets management.
• Ensure robust protection of Protected Health Information (PHI) and Personally Identifiable Financial Information (PIFI) across all data stores, pipelines, and APIs.
• Lead implementation and enforcement of data access governance, including automated discovery, tagging, and lineage for sensitive data across cloud data lakes and warehouses.
• Partner with data engineering and ML teams to embed privacy-by-design and security-by-design principles into data platform architectures.
• Ensure IAM and data security controls satisfy HIPAA/HITECH, PCI-DSS, SOC 2 Type II, NIST 800-53, ISO 27001, and state data privacy laws
• Own the IAM and data security sections of audit readiness programs, regulatory examinations, and third-party assessments.
• Define metrics, KPIs, and executive dashboards to communicate program health and risk posture to the CISO, CTO, and Board.
• Partner with Legal and Privacy teams on data breach response, regulatory notifications, and privacy impact assessments.
• Collaborate with Infrastructure, DevOps, and Platform Engineering to embed security controls natively into CI/CD pipelines and cloud infrastructure (IaC).
• Evaluate and manage relationships with security technology vendors, MSSPs, and industry partners.
• Represent the organization in industry forums, regulatory engagements, and partner/customer security reviews.

Benefits

• 401k plan with employer match
• flexible paid time off
• holidays
• parental leaves
• life and disability insurance
• health benefits including medical, dental, vision, and prescription drug coverage

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Senior