Senior Zero Trust / Enterprise Security Architect

eTelligent Group LLC • Bethesda, MD

3d • Hybrid

About The Position

eTel is seeking a Senior Zero Trust / Enterprise Security Architect to serve as the lead architect for NIH's Future State Zero Trust Architecture. This role is part of the NIH Governance, Risk & Compliance (GRC) Zero Trust Architecture (ZTA) Support Services task order for the NIH Office of the Chief Information Officer (OCIO). Working within the Architecture Pod, you will lead Task 2 and support Tasks 3, 4, and 7. Your primary responsibility will be to produce reference architectures and design patterns that application, platform, HPC, clinical, and laboratory teams across NIH's 27 ICs will utilize for their build-outs. eTel has been delivering essential solutions for the federal government for 15 years, focusing on securing and managing data, providing scalable identity access, modernizing legacy systems, and building high-performance platforms. They integrate new technologies and ensure reliable operations to help agencies prepare for future challenges. As a premier technology solutions and services company to the US federal government, eTel has longstanding relationships across the federal civilian marketplace, including customers within the Treasury Department, Commerce Department, and State Department. eTel offers integrated CMMI Level 3 processes, tools, and techniques with innovative, cost-efficient, and secure solutions to address complex challenges. They also hold ISO 9001:2015, ISO/IEC 27001:2013, and ISO/IEC 20000-1:2018 certifications, and provide dedicated subject matter experts (SMEs) and thought leaders with a deep understanding of customer environments and challenges.

Requirements

• Bachelor's degree plus 10+ years of security architecture experience.
• Deep, practical knowledge of NIST SP 800-207/207A, the CISA ZTMM v2.0, OMB M-22-09, NIST SP 800-53 Rev 5, and NIST SP 800-63-4.
• A track record of designing cloud and hybrid Zero Trust reference architectures for large, federated enterprises.
• Strong written artifacts: architecture diagrams, decision records, and design patterns with control mappings.
• Ability to obtain an NIH suitability determination and PIV credential; fluent in English.
• U.S. Citizenship required.

Nice To Haves

• CISSP, CISSP-ISSAP, SABSA, or TOGAF.
• Experience with research, academic, health, or other decentralized IT environments (HPC, clinical, laboratory).
• Familiarity with the CISA Zero Trust guidance for cloud, NSA Zero Trust guidance, TIC 3.0, and the HHS Federated EA Framework.
• Vendor certifications (Microsoft, Zscaler, Palo Alto, Okta, AWS, Azure).

Responsibilities

• Lead Task 2: define the NIH Future State ZTA across identity, device, network, application/workload, and data, with automation, orchestration, and continuous monitoring.
• With OITA, ISAO, and CIT service owners, inventory every centrally provided capability: enterprise ICAM and PIV/derived credentials, endpoint management, segmentation and secure access, API gateways, data classification and encryption, and logging/SIEM. Build the ZTA Pillar Centrally Provided Services Matrix (Subtask 2.1, due at 120 days).
• Author gold-standard reference architectures for cloud, on-premises, and hybrid environments (Subtask 2.2), broken down into NIST SP 800-207 Policy Engine, Policy Administrator, and Policy Enforcement Point components.
• Tailor those architectures to NIH workload families: clinical systems (FHIR gateways, PostgreSQL, React), HPC and bioinformatics (Linux/Slurm, Nextflow, object storage), extramural grants (Appian/COTS, eRA integrations), IC business applications (Salesforce, ServiceNow, M365, Java/Angular), and laboratory/IoT instruments (Cryo-EM, mass spectrometry, LIMS).
• Set per-pillar Advanced and Optimal targets against the CISA ZTMM v2.0 and build the risk-informed remediation roadmap.
• Co-lead Task 3 AI use-case discovery with the AI/ML Solutions Architect. Contribute architecture criteria to the Task 4 ZTA Overlay and to the Task 7 architecture-review checkpoints.
• Validate each pattern with at least one IC team before publication, and brief decisions to the Architecture Review Board and domain teams.
• Maintain artifacts as Git-versioned architecture-as-code and publish them to the OCIO ZTA Wiki.

What This Job Offers

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