Senior Manager, Identity and Access Management

Western Governors University; United States; On-site; USD 152,000 - 251,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Bonuses

Medical, dental, vision

Health savings account

Life insurance

Disability coverage

Wellbeing program

Tuition discount

Flexible PTO

Parental leave

11 holidays

Job summary

Western Governors University is seeking a Senior Manager, Identity and Access Management to own the strategy, architecture, governance, and daily operation of the enterprise IAM program. You will lead a team of identity engineers and analysts, set technical standards, and partner with HR, Legal, Privacy, Internal Audit, and IT.

You will drive availability and security of authentication, federation, and lifecycle services across workforce, students, partners, and non-human identities, including

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree or equivalent experience in information security.
• 7+ years in information security or IAM, or 10 years in security.
• 3+ years of people leadership experience.
• One or more certifications (CISSP, CISM, or similar).
• Deep knowledge of identity governance and administration: lifecycle automation, provisioning, role design, access certification, separation of duties.
• Familiarity with SAML, OpenID Connect, OAuth 2.0, SCIM, LDAP; MFA and passwordless auth.

Responsibilities

• Define IAM strategy, roadmap, and priorities with executive sponsorship.
• Lead and grow a team of identity engineers and analysts.
• Oversee identity governance, lifecycle, and access certification processes.
• Manage authentication, federation, and passwordless solutions.
• Oversee privileged and non-human identity management and service accounts.
• Lead identity security operations and remediation of permission drift.
• Ensure availability, resilience, and disaster recovery for IAM services.
• Ensure policy, compliance, and audits align with standards.

Skills

IAM experience

People leadership

Security certifications

Identity governance

SAML & OAuth

Threat detection

NIST standards

Non-human identities

Education

Bachelor's degree

CISSP/CISM

Security certifications

Tools

Credential vaulting

Directory services

Job description

If you’re passionate about building a better future for individuals, communities, and our country—and you’re committed to working hard to play your part in building that future—consider WGU as the next step in your career. Driven by a mission to expand access to higher education through online, competency-based degree programs, WGU is also committed to being a great place to work for a diverse workforce of student-focused professionals. The university has pioneered a new way to learn in the 21st century, one that has received praise from academic, industry, government, and media leaders. Whatever your role, working for WGU gives you a part to play in helping students graduate, creating a better tomorrow for themselves and their families. The salary range for this position takes into account the wide range of factors that are considered in making compensation decisions including but not limited to skill sets; experience and training; licensure and certifications; and other business and organizational needs. At WGU, it is not typical for an individual to be hired at or near the top of the range for their position, and compensation decisions are dependent on the facts and circumstances of each case. A reasonable estimate of the current range is: Grade: Management Technical 714 Pay Range: $151,800.00 - $250,500.00

Job Description As Senior Manager, Identity and Access Management, you own the strategy, architecture, governance, and daily operation of the enterprise IAM program within Information Security. The scope is the full program: identity governance and administration, access management and federation, privileged access management, identity threat detection and security posture management, and enterprise certificate lifecycle services. It spans every population the university serves — workforce, students and learners, external partners, and the fast-growing set of non-human identities, including service accounts, enterprise secrets, and AI agents. You will lead a team of identity engineers and analysts, set the technical standards other teams build against, and partner with Human Resources, Legal, Privacy, Internal Audit, Infrastructure, and Application Development. You will also be accountable for the reliability of authentication and other IAM services, which the university treats as tier‑one dependencies.

What You’ll Own

• Program strategy and direction. The IAM strategy, capability roadmap, and program priorities, along with the business case and executive sponsorship behind them.
• Team leadership. Leading, coaching, and developing a team of identity engineers and analysts, including hiring, goal setting, and performance management.
• Identity governance and lifecycle. Automated joiner, mover, and leaver processes driven by authoritative human resources, student, and affiliate systems of record; the enterprise identity data model and registry of record; role and entitlement design; separation-of-duties policy; and access certification through closed-loop remediation.
• Authentication and federation. Single sign-on, multi‑factor and passwordless authentication, federation with partners and peer institutions, and accessible authentication and account recovery paths for every population the university serves.
• Privileged and non‑human identity. Credential vaulting, session control, just‑in‑time elevation, break‑glass procedures, and reduction of standing privilege - extended to service accounts, enterprise secrets, and the authorization boundaries of AI agents and autonomous workloads.
• Identity security operations. Identity threat detection and response, identity security posture management, remediation of permission drift and orphaned accounts, and the identity lead role during security incident response.
• Service reliability. Availability, resilience, and disaster recovery for authentication and other IAM services, including defined service levels and tested failover.
• Policy, compliance, and audit. Access control policy and standards, identity governance and exception adjudication, least‑privilege access under FERPA, GLBA, and PCI DSS, control mapping against the NIST Cybersecurity Framework and NIST SP 800‑53, and audit and assessor response.
• Architecture and standards. IAM reference architecture, technical standards, and integration patterns, including review and approval of new identity designs proposed by project and application teams.

What You’ll Bring

• A bachelor's degree in a related field and 7 years of information security or identity and access management experience, or 10 years of industry experience working in security.
• Hands‑on experience in identity and access management, including developing or leading an IAM program.
• 3+ years of people leadership experience.
• One or more industry security certifications (CISSP, CISM, or a recognized identity and access management certification).
• Depth in identity governance and administration: lifecycle automation, provisioning, role and entitlement design, access certification, and separation of duties.
• Command of identity and access standards, including SAML, OpenID Connect, OAuth 2.0, SCIM, and LDAP, and of multi‑factor and passwordless authentication.
• Experience with privileged access management, including credential vaulting, session control, and privilege reduction.
• Experience governing non‑human identities, service accounts, and enterprise secrets.
• Experience with certificate lifecycle management and the public key infrastructure supporting service, device, and workload identity.
• Working knowledge of enterprise directory services and how they integrate with identity platforms.
• Knowledge of NIST, HIPAA, FERPA, GLBA, ISO, PCI DSS, and other regulatory and industry standards.
• The ability to explain complex security problems to business partners in terms they can act on.

What Will Set You Apart

• A master's degree in a related field.
• Certification in an identity‑focused discipline or an enterprise identity platform.
• Identity and access management experience in higher education, or another environment with overlapping workforce, student, and affiliate populations.
• Experience with identity threat detection and response or identity security posture management.

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Position & Application Details

Full‑time Regular Positions (classified as regular and working 40 standard weekly hours): This is a full‑time, regular position (classified for 40 standard weekly hours) that is eligible for bonuses;

• eligible for bonuses
• medical, dental, vision, telehealth and mental healthcare
• health savings account and flexible spending account
• basic and voluntary life insurance
• disability coverage
• accident, critical illness and hospital indemnity supplemental coverages
• legal and identity theft coverage
• retirement savings plan
• wellbeing program
• discounted WGU tuition
• flexible paid time off for rest and relaxation with no need for accrual
• flexible paid sick time with no need for accrual
• 11 paid holidays
• other paid leaves, including up to 12 weeks of parental leave

Additional Information Disclaimer: The job posting highlights the most critical responsibilities and requirements of the job. It’s not all-inclusive.

Accommodations: Applicants with disabilities who require assistance or accommodation during the application or interview process should contact our Talent Acquisition team at [e-mail].

Equal Employment Opportunity: All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to any protected characteristic as required by law.

In 1997, a coalition of 19 U.S. governors founded Western Governors University with a singular vision: to make higher education more accessible by offering full degree programs online. Starting small, we quickly expanded. Today, we’re one of the largest accredited online universities in the U.S.