Senior Specialist, Lead Zero Trust Identity Security Engineering

Vanguard; Dallas (TX); On-site; USD 190,000 - 230,000; Full time

Job summary

Vanguard seeks a Senior Lead Identity Engineer to provide technical leadership for our workforce identity platform with deep Okta expertise. You will design, operate, and evolve enterprise-scale identity systems supporting high availability, regulatory compliance, and resiliency including multi‑IdP and directory strategies.

The ideal candidate has 12+ years in identity engineering, architects identity as a discipline, and collaborates across engineering, security, infra, and executives to drive

Qualifications

• Undergraduate degree in a related field or the equivalent combination of training and experience.
• 12+ years of Identity & Access Management engineering experience.
• Skilled in using DevOps tools and experience in Policy as code.
• Deep hands-on expertise with Okta (Workforce Identity, MFA, SSO, policies, lifecycle).
• Strong working knowledge of Ping Identity products (PingFederate, PingOne, Ping Directory) or equivalent platforms.
• Expert understanding of identity standards: OAuth 2.0, OIDC, SAML Federation and token-based security.
• Proven experience with directory services & LDAP (AD, cloud directories).
• Experience building identity platforms in AWS/GCP, including containerized/Kubernetes deployments.
• Strong troubleshooting skills for complex authentication and federation failures.
• Ability to operate in high-visibility, high-impact environments.

Responsibilities

• Serve as technical lead for workforce identity platforms, with Okta as the primary IdP and integrations to complementary platforms (e.g., Ping/Entra Identity).
• Own end‑to‑end identity architecture, including authentication flows, federation, directory integrations, and token issuance.
• Lead design reviews and decisions for IdP resiliency, failover, and supplier‑risk mitigation strategies.
• Document existing and new architecture and act as a hands‑on engineer while also setting technical direction, patterns, and standards.
• Strong communication, influence, and stakeholder‑management skills, with the ability to distill complex identity and security architectures into clear and concise messaging.

Skills

Identity engineering

Leadership

Communication

Mentoring

DevOps tools

Policy as code

Education

Bachelor's degree or related field

Tools

Okta

Ping Identity (PingFederate / PingOne)

Terraform / CloudFormation

Kubernetes

Docker

LDAP / Directory services

Job description

We are seeking a Senior Lead Identity Engineer to provide technical leadership for our workforce identity platform, with deep expertise in Okta and strong proficiency in standards‑based identity and access management technologies. This role is responsible for designing, operating, and evolving enterprise‑scale identity platforms that support high availability, regulatory compliance, and long‑term resiliency—including multi‑IdP and directory strategies. The ideal candidate brings 12+ years of identity engineering experience, understands identity as architecture—not just product configuration, and can operate comfortably across engineering, security, infrastructure, and executive stakeholders.

Key Responsibilities

Identity Platform Engineering & Leadership

• Serve as technical lead for workforce identity platforms, with Okta as the primary IdP and integrations to complementary platforms (e.g., Ping/Entra Identity).
• Own end‑to‑end identity architecture, including authentication flows, federation, directory integrations, and token issuance.
• Lead design reviews and decisions for IdP resiliency, failover, and supplier‑risk mitigation strategies.
• Document existing and new architecture and act as a hands‑on engineer while also setting technical direction, patterns, and standards.
• Strong communication, influence, and stakeholder‑management skills, with the ability to distill complex identity and security architectures into clear and concise messaging.

Standards‑Based Identity & Federation

• Design and troubleshoot identity flows using OAuth 2.0 / OIDC SAML 2.0 SCIM JWT / token‑based auth.
• Ensure token parity, claim consistency, and issuer abstraction across identity providers to minimize application impact.
• Partner with application teams to enable modern authentication without app re‑architecture.

Directory & Identity Data Architecture

• Engineer and maintain directory integrations across Active Directory, Okta UD, and cloud directories (e.g., Ping Directory).
• Design attribute models, lifecycle management, and group strategies at enterprise scale (thousands of groups, large population sizes).
• Support directory deployments in cloud‑native environments (AWS/GCP, containers, Kubernetes).

Cloud, Automation & Reliability

• Build and operate identity infrastructure in AWS/GCP/Azure, using: Infrastructure & Policy as Code (Terraform / CloudFormation) Kubernetes & containerized identity services.
• Automate provisioning, deployment, monitoring, and drift detection for identity platforms.
• Support SRE‑style operational maturity: SLIs/SLOs, alerting, incident response, and runbooks for identity services.

Security, Risk & Compliance

• Design identity controls aligned to Zero Trust principles and enterprise security policies.
• Partner with CSOC, audit, and risk teams on: Control validation Incident response Regulatory and audit requirements (SOX, SOC, internal controls).
• Contribute to risk assessments related to supplier dependency, SPOFs, and identity outages.

Collaboration & Influence

• Work closely with security architecture, infrastructure, application engineering, IAM operations, and vendors.
• Influence roadmap decisions through clear technical reasoning and executive‑ready communication.
• Mentor senior and mid‑level engineers and raise overall identity engineering maturity.

Qualifications

• Undergraduate degree in a related field or the equivalent combination of training and experience.
• 12+ years of experience in Identity & Access Management engineering.
• Skilled in using DevOps tools and experience in Policy as code.
• Deep hands‑on expertise with Okta (Workforce Identity, MFA, SSO, policies, lifecycle).
• Strong working knowledge of Ping Identity products (PingFederate, PingOne, Ping Directory) or equivalent platforms.
• Expert understanding of identity standards: OAuth 2.0, OIDC, SAML Federation and token‑based security.
• Proven experience with directory services & LDAP (AD, cloud directories).
• Experience building identity platforms in AWS/GCP, including containerized/Kubernetes deployments.
• Strong troubleshooting skills for complex authentication and federation failures.
• Ability to operate in high‑visibility, high‑impact environments.

Special Factors

Vanguard is offering visa sponsorship for this position.