Cybersecurity SME

Socket.dev; Washington (District of Columbia); Hybrid; USD 170,000 - 210,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

401(k)

Health insurance

Dental insurance

Paid time off

Tuition reimbursement

Job summary

Socket.dev seeks a Subject Matter Expert (SME) Cybersecurity Architect to lead security architecture across enterprise solutions for a federal modernization program. This is a hands-on role based in Washington, DC, requiring U.S. citizenship and hybrid work arrangements.

You will produce real security designs, guide reviews, implementation, and operations, bridging policy with practical, risk-based decisions throughout the lifecycle.

Qualifications

• 12+ years in cybersecurity with security architecture or enterprise leadership.
• Ability to translate federal requirements into implementable designs and actions.
• Strong communication with engineers, architects, PMs, and government stakeholders.
• Knowledge of RMF, zero trust, cloud, IAM, logging, and data protection.

Responsibilities

• Develop and assess security architectures, patterns, requirements, controls integration, and segmentation.
• Design logging, resilience, and operational safeguards into solution architecture.
• Translate federal requirements into practical design decisions and risk statements.
• Participate in architecture reviews, governance, and risk-informed recommendations.
• Coordinate with cross-domain stakeholders to embed security from the start.
• Produce implementable security designs with traceable risk decisions.

Skills

Security architecture

Enterprise leadership

Threat modeling

Risk management

Cross-domain coordination

Communication

Zero trust

Identity & access

Tools

Sparx/Prolaborate

Job description

We are seeking a Subject Matter Expert (SME) Cybersecurity Architect to join our team supporting a large-scale federal modernization program. This role owns security architecture across enterprise solutions, platforms, networks, identity, mobility/endpoints, data, and cloud, bridging cybersecurity policy and controls with implementable designs, evidence, and risk decisions throughout the system lifecycle.
This is a hands-on architecture role. You'll be expected to produce real security designs and see them through review, implementation, and operations, not just set policy from a distance.
This is a hybrid role based out of Washington, DC. Candidates must be U.S. citizens.

Key Responsibilities

• Security Architecture & Design

• Develop and assess security architectures, patterns, requirements, controls integration, trust boundaries, data flows, and identity and segmentation design.
• Design logging, resilience, and operational safeguards into solution architecture.
• Translate federal and agency security requirements into practical design decisions, implementation actions, and residual-risk statements.

• Reviews & Governance

• Participate in architecture compliance, technical design, engineering, security, and phase-gate reviews.
• Evaluate proposed deviations and waivers, and provide risk-informed recommendations for approval.
• Maintain security architecture artifacts, review findings, decisions, and risks in approved repositories, with clear traceability.

• Cross-Domain Coordination

• Coordinate with solution, data, cloud/platform, network, identity, endpoint/mobility, and operations stakeholders to embed security into design from the start.
• Identify design gaps, threats, vulnerabilities, technical debt, and noncompliance early in the lifecycle, and propose mitigation options.

• Risk & Compliance

• Apply federal risk management framework and security control knowledge to real design decisions.
• Support authorization evidence, implementation readiness, and post-deployment validation as needed.
• Produce implementable security designs, review findings, mitigations, and risk decisions that engineers can act on.

• Communication & Advisory

• Communicate security architecture decisions, tradeoffs, and residual risk clearly to engineers, architects, program managers, and Government stakeholders.
• Support incident and problem learning to feed back into architecture improvements.
• 12+ years of experience in cybersecurity, including significant time in security architecture or enterprise technical leadership.
• Working knowledge of federal risk management, security controls, authorization, continuous monitoring, zero trust, identity, network, endpoint, cloud, application, data, and logging considerations.
• Ability to interpret security requirements and produce implementable designs, review findings, mitigations, and risk decisions.
• Strong communication skills, with experience engaging engineers, architects, program managers, and Government decision-makers.
• U.S. citizenship required.

Nice to Have

• Direct federal, government, or mission-critical system security architecture experience.
• CISSP, CCSP, CISM, SABSA, GIAC, cloud security, or comparable security credentials.
• Experience with NIST RMF/control families, zero trust, cloud security, identity, endpoint security, segmentation, logging/SIEM, and vulnerability management.
• Experience documenting security architecture views in Sparx/Prolaborate or comparable architecture/modeling tools.
• 401(k)
• 401(k) matching
• Dental insurance
• Flexible spending account
• Health insurance
• Life insurance
• Paid time off
• Professional development assistance
• Referral program
• Tuition reimbursement
• Vision insurance