Senior Security Architecture Specialist

474 MS Services Group, Inc.; Alpharetta (GA); On-site; USD 140,000 - 200,000; Full time

Job summary

Morgan Stanley in the United States is seeking a Senior Security Architecture Specialist to lead security design tooling and architecture standards across the firm. This role operates within the Cyber organization and focuses on translating compliance obligations into practical, developer-friendly architecture patterns while managing the governance toolchain.

The position requires extensive SDLC security controls experience (SAST, SCA, OSS governance, container scanning), policy-as-code

Qualifications

• 7+ years of IT/security experience with SDLC security controls.
• Ability to translate architecture decisions into compliance traceability artifacts.
• Experience producing architecture decision records, threat models, and governance artifacts.
• Strong written and verbal communication; ability to create executive-facing recommendations.

Responsibilities

• Govern security architecture standards across all verticals; ADRs, threat models, and control plane design.
• Produce compliance traceability for architecture decisions against requirements.
• Drive cross-team architecture through influence with principal engineers.
• Support security standards; create templates to increase adoption of security programs.
• Operate and evolve the design governance toolchain.
• Define ADR lifecycles and ensure authoritative decision records.

Skills

SAST

SCA

OSS governance

Container scanning

Policy as code

Threat modeling

Architecture governance

Python

PowerShell

Communication

Influence

Education

Bachelor's degree in cybersecurity

CISSP/CSSLP certification

Tools

GitHub Advanced Security

Snyk

WhiteSource

Sonatype

X‑Ray

Wiz

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. At Morgan Stanley, we advise, originate, trade, manage and distribute capital for people, governments and institutions, always with a standard of excellence and guided by our core values. Morgan Stanley is dedicated to providing first‑class service to our clients, in a way that reflects our commitment to creating a more sustainable future and fostering stronger communities around the world. In each line of business, we strive to demonstrate our belief in the power of transformative thinking, innovative strategies and leading‑edge solutions—and in the ability of capital to work for the benefit of all society.