Senior Principal Security Architect

MetLif; Cary (NC); On-site; USD 130,000 - 170,000; Full time

Job summary

MetLife is seeking a Senior Principal Security Architect to lead Security Architecture across Global Security. You will own security architecture reviews, mentor architects nationwide, and drive target-state patterns and roadmaps while partnering with multiple stakeholders to improve enterprise security.

You will influence design decisions, raise security standards, and collaborate with governance bodies to ensure risk-aware decisions across major technology initiatives.

Qualifications

• 12+ years in technology, including security architecture/engineering at enterprise scale.
• Mentor or lead architects/engineers and act as final technical authority on complex decisions.
• Expertise in threat modeling, risk assessment, attack path analysis and remediation planning.
• Knowledge of identity-centric security, zero trust, least privilege and secure-by-design principles.

Responsibilities

• Serve as the primary escalation point for security architecture matters and lead SAR outcomes.
• Own SAR quality, define standards and sign-off on high-risk assessments.
• Mentor security architects across US and MGCC through reviews and threat-modeling sessions.
• Build team depth with knowledge-sharing, reference architectures and onboarding support.
• Represent Security Architecture in governance forums and leadership discussions.
• Partner with teams to ensure consistent security patterns across programs.

Skills

Security architecture

Mentoring/leadership

Threat modeling

Risk assessment

Zero trust

Identity-centric security

Executive communication

Distributed teams

Job description

As part of MetLife’s Global Security team, you’ll work alongside world-class experts to protect MetLife, our customers and our colleagues. The team is responsible for managing cybersecurity, IT risks and vulnerabilities, physical security, and more. In this fast-paced, mission-driven environment, you’ll join outstanding teammates to expand your skills, collaborate across the organization and implement innovative approaches to safeguard MetLife when it matters most. Ready to make an impact? Join us if you want to embrace the rapidly evolving environment and use transformative technology to integrate and build security into the foundation of key initiatives across MetLife.

The Opportunity

The Senior Principal Security Architect is the senior technical leader for Security Architecture within Global Security and the primary escalation point for all security architecture matters. This person leads risk-based Security Architecture Reviews (SAR) for enterprise technology and platform initiatives, makes the call on complex or contested design decisions, and mentors a team of security architects across the US and MGCC. They evaluate proposed architectures, identify material risks, recommend proportionate controls, and steer teams toward target-state architecture, reference patterns and roadmaps. They are also expected to raise the standard of the practice as a whole: setting review standards, building reusable reference architectures, and shaping enterprise security transformation through current-state assessment, maturity modeling and roadmap development.

Key Responsibilities

Technical Leadership, Escalation and Mentorship

• Serve as the primary escalation point for all security architecture matters. Resolve contested findings, high-risk or novel designs, and disagreements between delivery teams and reviewers; make the call where appropriate and elevate to Global Security leadership or risk-acceptance forums when required.
• Own the quality and consistency of SAR outcomes. Define review standards, risk-rating criteria and documentation templates, and provide technical review and sign-off on high-risk assessments produced by the team.
• Mentor and develop security architects across the US and MGCC through paired reviews, threat-modeling sessions, design critiques and regular technical feedback, raising the team's capability to handle complex reviews independently.
• Build team depth. Lead knowledge-sharing sessions, curate the security pattern library, support onboarding of new architects, and act as technical delegate for the Security Architecture leader.
• Represent Security Architecture at the Architecture Review Board, in technology governance and risk forums, and with senior leadership.
• Partner with the Securing Emerging Tech team on AI and emerging-technology reviews so that patterns and risk positions remain consistent across both teams.

Security Architecture Review and Design

• Lead and oversee Security Architecture Review (SAR) assessments for enterprise technology initiatives, including applications, platforms, cloud services, infrastructure, AI solutions, integrations and major transformation programs, personally owning the highest-risk and most complex engagements and providing quality oversight across the team's portfolio.
• Perform threat modeling and risk assessments to identify security design gaps, control weaknesses, trust-boundary concerns, attack paths, data exposure risks and operational impacts.
• Evaluate security controls, tools and technologies against architecture requirements, enterprise standards, risk posture and control-effectiveness objectives.
• Design and recommend secure architecture patterns across the five security pillars (IAM, network, devices, applications and data) and across cloud, SOC/security operations, governance/risk/compliance and AI, ensuring alignment with security automation, orchestration, monitoring, detection and response capabilities.
• Develop and maintain reusable security reference architectures, decision patterns, implementation guardrails and design principles to accelerate secure delivery at scale.
• Provide identity-centric security architecture guidance, including authentication assurance, authorization models, privileged access, least privilege, role-based access, non-human identity considerations and lifecycle integration.
• Advise on network segmentation, micro-segmentation, secure access, zero trust access patterns, ingress/egress controls and connectivity models for internal, internet-facing and B2B integrations.
• Design risk-based access policies for users, workloads, devices, applications, data and administrative functions, considering sensitivity, exposure, business criticality and operational requirements.
• Assess current-state security architecture and define target-state architecture, transition roadmaps, maturity models and strategic recommendations for enterprise security transformation.
• Partner with enterprise architecture, application teams, cloud/platform teams, network engineering, IAM, data protection, SOC, GRC, privacy, legal and risk stakeholders to develop pragmatic, implementable security recommendations.
• Document architecture decisions, risks, assumptions, compensating controls and required remediation actions clearly for technical teams, governance bodies and leadership audiences, including clear risk statements that support formal risk acceptance decisions.

Required Qualifications

• 12+ years of experience in technology, including 7+ years in security architecture or security engineering at enterprise scale.
• Strong experience in security architecture, enterprise architecture, security engineering or cyber risk roles, with demonstrated responsibility for reviewing or designing complex technology solutions.
• Demonstrated experience mentoring or technically leading architects or engineers, and acting as the final technical authority or escalation point on complex security decisions without formal reporting lines.
• Demonstrated expertise in threat modeling, risk assessment, attack path analysis, trust-boundary assessment, control gap analysis and security remediation planning.
• Deep understanding of security architecture patterns, including identity-centric security, zero trust, least privilege, defense-in-depth, segmentation, secure access, data protection, secure integration and secure-by-design principles.
• Ability to evaluate security controls and technologies, determine control applicability, assess architecture fit and provide risk-based recommendations that balance protection, usability, delivery speed and operational feasibility.
• Strong understanding of enterprise architecture practices, including current-state assessment, target-state architecture, roadmap planning, maturity modeling, capability modeling and transformation leadership.
• Executive-level communication: able to explain risk and trade-offs to engineers, governance bodies and senior leadership, and to hold a well-reasoned position under delivery pressure.
• Experience working effectively with globally distributed teams across time zones.

Preferred Qualifications