Technical Lead Chief Security Architect / Engineer

9thwayinsignia; United States; Hybrid; USD 140,000 - 210,000; Full time

Job summary

9th Way Insignia is seeking a Hybrid Manager/Technical Lead to oversee senior security architecture and engineering for the VA COSE program. You will lead cross-functional teams, set technical direction, and translate mission requirements into secure designs.

The ideal candidate brings extensive experience in cybersecurity architecture, zero-trust principles, threat modeling, and governance of enterprise security architectures across complex systems, ensuring alignment with federal standards and

Qualifications

• Senior-level leadership and collaboration across multiple teams.
• Strong background in cybersecurity architecture and engineering.
• Experience translating mission requirements into secure, scalable designs.

Responsibilities

• Provide senior-level technical leadership and architectural direction for enterprise cybersecurity architecture and engineering activities across the VA environment.
• Serve as a principal security architecture and engineering subject matter expert, advising Government leadership, program managers, architects, engineers, and technical teams on complex cybersecurity and technology decisions.
• Translate customer, mission, business, cybersecurity, and regulatory requirements into enterprise security architectures, engineering requirements, technical strategies, and implementation guidance.
• Lead and coordinate architecture and engineering teams to ensure technical requirements are clearly understood, assigned, implemented, and validated.
• Conduct and oversee enterprise and system-level security architecture reviews for new, existing, and modernized systems.
• Assess whether proposed architectures adequately address threats, vulnerabilities, regulatory requirements, security controls, and enterprise risk tolerance.
• Perform and oversee architecture risk and gap analyses to evaluate compliance with VA and Federal policies, standards, frameworks, and strategic objectives.
• Develop technically sound and actionable risk-mitigation strategies and architectural recommendations for identified security weaknesses.
• Apply Zero Trust, defense-in-depth, least privilege, and secure-by-design principles to enterprise and solution architectures.
• Lead or provide oversight for security threat modeling, including identification of attack vectors, threat actors, misuse cases, attack paths, control gaps, architectural weaknesses, residual risks, and mitigations.
• Guide the development and maintenance of Security Reference Architectures, Solution Architectures, Security Patterns, and supporting enterprise architecture artifacts.
• Ensure architectures include appropriate logical, physical, conceptual, network, and data-flow views and accurately represent system components, interfaces, dependencies, and security controls.
• Ensure security architectures remain aligned with enterprise goals, cybersecurity strategies, modernization initiatives, and technology ro

Skills

Leadership

Cybersecurity

Enterprise architecture

Security governance

Tools

Security frameworks

Job description

9th Way Insignia is a service-disabled, veteran-owned small business bringing transformative technology to our government customers so they can achieve their missions. Our specialties include cybersecurity, cloud modernization, software development, data analytics, enterprise architecture, enterprise IT, analytics, process automation, and artificial intelligence. Learn more about 9th Way Insignia at https://9thwayinsignia.com/.

Team (Project) Introduction

The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) Cybersecurity Operations Systems Engineering (COSE) project serves as an overarching technical engine that unifies Architecture and Engineering Services throughout the VA Enterprise. This program implements cohesive organizational security architecture and underlying engineering components that utilize national security standards, guidelines, and frameworks. COSE bridges the gap between high-level business requirements and technical structures, enabling the consistent deployment of secure technologies through implementation guidance and the establishment of an analytic library. Systems security engineering within COSE contributes a holistic perspective to the systems engineering effort, ensuring that stakeholder protection needs are addressed throughout the entire system life cycle from concept and development to production, support, and decommissioning. By drawing upon well-established systems engineering and security principles, COSE adapts and supplements practices to protect intellectual property, data, and the methods used to create VA systems. These activities improve the security posture of VA applications to prevent, deter, or detract from cyberattacks by nefarious adversaries or insider threats.

9 th Way Insignia is looking for a Hybrid Manager/Technical Lead (Technical Skills), Technical Lead Chief Security Architect / Engineer to join this team.

Professional Level Information:

A Hybrid Manager at 9th Way Insignia accomplishes department objectives by managing staff and processes and evaluating department activities. Focuses on leading a team and working hands-on with projects involving technology. Hybrid Managers require skills and qualifications such as exceptional leadership, communication and interpersonal skills.

Functional Job (LCAT) Information:

The Technical Lead Chief Security Architect / Engineer will serve as the senior technical authority for cybersecurity architecture and engineering activities supporting the VA COSE program. The individual will lead the development, assessment, modernization, and governance of enterprise security architectures and guide multidisciplinary engineering teams in translating mission, cybersecurity, and business requirements into secure, scalable, standards-aligned technical solutions.

Responsibilities:

• Provide senior-level technical leadership and architectural direction for enterprise cybersecurity architecture and engineering activities across the VA environment.
• Serve as a principal security architecture and engineering subject matter expert, advising Government leadership, program managers, architects, engineers, and technical teams on complex cybersecurity and technology decisions.
• Translate customer, mission, business, cybersecurity, and regulatory requirements into enterprise security architectures, engineering requirements, technical strategies, and implementation guidance.
• Lead and coordinate architecture and engineering teams to ensure technical requirements are clearly understood, assigned, implemented, and validated.
• Conduct and oversee enterprise and system-level security architecture reviews for new, existing, and modernized systems.
• Assess whether proposed architectures adequately address threats, vulnerabilities, regulatory requirements, security controls, and enterprise risk tolerance.
• Perform and oversee architecture risk and gap analyses to evaluate compliance with VA and Federal policies, standards, frameworks, and strategic objectives.
• Develop technically sound and actionable risk-mitigation strategies and architectural recommendations for identified security weaknesses.
• Apply Zero Trust, defense-in-depth, least privilege, and secure-by-design principles to enterprise and solution architectures.
• Lead or provide oversight for security threat modeling, including identification of attack vectors, threat actors, misuse cases, attack paths, control gaps, architectural weaknesses, residual risks, and mitigations.
• Guide the development and maintenance of Security Reference Architectures, Solution Architectures, Security Patterns, and supporting enterprise architecture artifacts.
• Ensure architectures include appropriate logical, physical, conceptual, network, and data-flow views and accurately represent system components, interfaces, dependencies, and security controls.
• Ensure security architectures remain aligned with enterprise goals, cybersecurity strategies, modernization initiatives, and technology ro