Senior Security Architecture Specialist

Morgan Stanley; Alpharetta (GA); On-site; USD 180,000 - 240,000; Full time

Job summary

Morgan Stanley in Alpharetta, GA seeks a Senior Security Architecture Specialist (VP) to drive security design governance across the firm. You will steward architecture standards, enable compliant patterns, and partner with principal engineers to implement security controls at scale.

You will translate regulatory obligations into actionable architecture artifacts, define ADR lifecycles, and integrate security tooling with development pipelines to improve traceability and deployment efficiency.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree or equivalent with 7+ years IT security experience.
• Experience designing and governing SDLC security controls at scale (SAST, SCA, OSS governance).
• Hands-on with policy as code frameworks (OPA, Sentinel) and policy reviews.
• Experience producing architecture decision records and threat models.
• Strong written and verbal communication translating decisions to compliance artifacts.
• Track record driving adoption through influence.
• Strong scripting background (Python, PowerShell).

Responsibilities

• Govern architecture standards across all verticals and ensure traceability to compliance.
• Operate the design governance toolchain and ADR lifecycles.
• Build integrations between spec platform and dev tools to improve continuous compliance.

Skills

SAST

SCA

OSS governance

Container scanning

Policy as code

Architecture governance

Threat modeling

Python scripting

PowerShell scripting

Education

Bachelor’s degree

Tools

GitHub Advanced Security

Snyk

WhiteSource

Sonatype

X-Ray

Wiz

Jenkins

Kubernetes

Docker

Job description

In the Technology division, we leverage innovation to build the connections and capabilities that power our Firm, enabling our clients and colleagues to redefine markets and shape the future of our communities. This is a Senior Security Architecture Specialist position at Vice President level, which is part of the job family responsible for providing specialist cyber expertise and creating solutions that protect the organization's systems and networks against actual and potential security threats and vulnerabilities.

Morgan Stanley is an industry leader in financial services, known for mobilizing capital to help governments, corporations, institutions, and individuals around the world achieve their financial goals.

Interested in joining a team that’s eager to create, innovate and make an impact on the world? Read on.

We're seeking someone to join our team as a Senior Security Architecture Specialist in Cyber to be responsible for the security design tooling and security architecture standards across the firm – translating compliance obligations into operable, developer friendly architecture patterns, while directly operating the design governance toolchain that makes those standards real.

What you'll do in the role:

Architecture governance

• Steward the security architecture standard across all verticals – ADRs, threat models, trust boundaries, and control plane design
• Produce compliance traceability artifacts mapping architecture decisions to compliance requirements
• Drive cross team architecture through influence with principal engineers and engineering leads
• Support security standards, create templates and patterns to increase the efficiency and adoption of security programs.

Living Spec & Design Governance

• Operate and evolve the design governance toolchain
• Define the ADR lifecycles from creation to deprecation and ensure decision records remain the authoritative reference for architecture choices
• Build integrations between spec platform and dev tooling to make compliance traceability continuous, not periodic

What you’ll bring to the role:

• Bachelor’s degree with 7+ years of work experience in the IT field or equivalent.
• Demonstrated experience designing and governing SDLC security controls at scale – SAST, SCA, OSS governance, and container scanning.
• Hands‑on experience with policy as code frameworks (OPA, Sentinel, or equivalent) and the ability to review and write policies, not just evaluate vendor tooling.
• Experience producing architecture decision records, threat models, or equivalent design governance artifacts that served as authoritative references for engineering teams.
• Strong written and verbal communication, ability to translate architecture decisions into compliance traceability artifacts and executive-facing recommendation documents.
• Track record of driving adoption through influence.
• Strong scripting background (Python, PowerShell).

Desired Skills:

• A degree in Cybersecurity and/or CISSP/CSSLP certification and keen desire to move to security field.
• Business acumen to support the implementation of SAST, DAST, SCA, Container Security, API Security and IaC tools across the enterprise.
• Ability to perform code reviews with minimal assistance.
• A self-starter, with a strong desire for learning new technologies and applying them to solve problems.
• Expertise in monitoring, alerting, reporting, and data analysis.
• Experience with two or more of the application build environments like Jenkins, Gradle, Maven.
• Familiarity with public cloud services.
• Experience with two or more of the Secure SDLC tools like GitHub Advanced Security, Snyk, WhiteSource, Sonatype, X-Ray, Wiz.
• Experience with Threat Analysis.
• DevOps container/orchestration tools (Kubernetes, Docker, Puppet, etc.).
• Experience with evaluation, integration and onboard of application security tools.

WHAT YOU CAN EXPECT FROM MORGAN STANLEY:

At Morgan Stanley, we raise, manage and allocate capital for our clients – helping them reach their goals. We do it in a way that’s differentiated – and we’ve done that for 90 years. Our values - putting clients first, doing the right thing, leading with exceptional ideas, committing to diversity and inclusion, and giving back - aren’t just beliefs, they guide the decisions we make every day to do what's best for our clients, communities and more than 80,000 employees in 1,200 offices across 42 countries. At Morgan Stanley, you’ll find an opportunity to work alongside the best and the brightest, in an environment where you are supported and empowered. Our teams are relentless collaborators and creative thinkers, fueled by their diverse backgrounds and experiences. We are proud to support our employees and their families at every point along their work-life journey, offering some of the most attractive and comprehensive employee benefits and perks in the industry. There’s also ample opportunity to move about the business for those who show passion and grit in their work.

To learn more about our offices across the globe, please copy and paste https://www.morganstanley.com/about-us/global-offices into your browser.

Morgan Stanley is an equal opportunity employer committed to building and maintaining a workforce that is diverse in experience and background. Our recruiting efforts reflect our strong commitment to a culture of inclusion, where individuals are hired, developed, and advanced based on their skills and talents.

Our workforce reflects a broad cross-section of the global communities in which we operate, bringing a variety of backgrounds, talents, perspectives, and experiences.

For more information, please visit: https://www.morganstanley.com/people-opportunities/eeo.