AWS Security Architect

Zachary Piper Solutions is seeking an experienced AWS Security Architect to support an IT consulting firm providing cloud, cybersecurity, and infrastructure support for a major financial services client. This is a hybrid role (3 days onsite, 2 days remote), and candidates must be able to work on-site in Reston, VA.

About the role

This role is ideal for someone who enjoys partnering with engineering teams to design secure cloud solutions, establish security standards, and influence enterprise architecture across multiple business units. This is a consultative architecture role focused on cloud security strategy and design rather than day-to-day implementation.

Responsibilities

• Serve as a senior Security Architect within the Information Security organization, providing security guidance for enterprise AWS initiatives.
• Review AWS solution architectures to ensure alignment with enterprise security standards, governance, and best practices.
• Partner with Cloud Engineering, Platform Engineering, DevOps, Enterprise Architecture, Application Development, and business stakeholders throughout the solution design lifecycle.
• Conduct cloud security architecture reviews, threat modeling, and security risk assessments.
• Develop secure cloud architecture patterns, standards, and design recommendations.
• Evaluate new AWS services and technologies from a security perspective.
• Advise engineering teams on IAM, networking, encryption, logging, monitoring, and secure application design.
• Participate in architecture review boards, security governance initiatives, and enterprise cloud security programs.

Requirements

• 8+ years of Information Security experience with a strong focus on cloud security, along with 5+ years designing and securing enterprise AWS environments.
• Experience serving as a Security Architect or Cloud Security Architect within a large enterprise organization.
• Strong understanding of cloud security governance, architecture reviews, threat modeling, risk assessments, and secure design principles.
• Experience with enterprise cloud architecture, multi-account AWS environments, and Infrastructure as Code (IaC) security reviews.

Skills

• Strong knowledge of AWS Identity & Access Management (IAM), AWS Organizations, VPC, EC2, Lambda, ECS/EKS, S3, RDS, CloudTrail, CloudWatch, AWS Config, GuardDuty, Security Hub, KMS, Secrets Manager, WAF, and Shield.
• Knowledge of enterprise AWS services across Identity & Access, Networking, Compute & Containers, Storage & Databases, Security & Governance, and Monitoring & Logging.
• Excellent communication skills with the ability to influence engineering teams, business stakeholders, and enterprise architecture decisions.
• Experience working within Financial Services or another highly regulated industry preferred.

Pay

Salary Range: $140,000 - $160,000 (depending on experience)

Benefits

• Medical, Dental, Vision
• 401k Plan
• PTO, Holidays, Sick Leave (if required by law)

Schedule

Hybrid (3 days onsite, 2 days remote)