Senior Principal Security Architect

Description and Requirements
The Team You Will Join
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 escalate 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.
• Experience developing reference architectures, security standards, guardrails, architecture decision records or reusable design patterns for enterprise teams.
• 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
• Experience supporting Security Architecture Review, Architecture Review Board, technology governance, cloud governance or risk acceptance processes in a large enterprise environment.
• Hands-on or architecture experience with identity platforms, privileged access management, conditional/risk-based access, role-based access control, federation, secrets management and workload/non-human identity patterns.
• Experience with secure access service edge (SASE), zero trust network access (ZTNA), micro-segmentation, API security, B2B connectivity, cloud connectivity and secure hybrid network architecture.
• Experience with cloud-native architectures, container platforms, Kubernetes, DevSecOps pipelines, infrastructure as code, policy-as-code, vulnerability management, posture management, logging, monitoring, detection and response integration.
• Familiarity with AI security risks and controls, including model misuse, sensitive data exposure, excessive agency, prompt injection, insecure integrations, supply chain risk, agentic AI and tool/plugin integrations, Model Context Protocol (MCP) security, AI governance workflows and secure AI deployment patterns.
• Experience influencing cross-functional architecture decisions and leading stakeholders toward target-state designs, standard patterns, measurable maturity improvements and practical implementation roadmaps.
• Relevant certifications such as CISSP, CCSP, SABSA, TOGAF, Microsoft Cybersecurity Architect Expert (SC-100), AWS Certified Security - Specialty, Azure or Google Cloud security certifications, CCSK, or other security architecture credentials are a plus.
Location Expectation: This is a hybrid role requiring a minimum of 3 days per week in office.
The expected salary range for this position is $ 165000 - $215000 . This role may also be eligible for annual short-term incentive compensation and stock-based long-term incentives. All incentives and benefits are subject to the applicable plan terms.
Benefits We Offer
Our U.S. benefits address holistic well-being with programs for physical and mental health, financial wellness, and support for families. We offer a comprehensive health plan that includes medical/prescription drug and vision, dental insurance, and no-cost short- and long-term disability. We also provide company-paid life insurance and legal services, a retirement pension funded entirely by MetLife and 401(k) with employer matching, group discounts on voluntary insurance products including auto and home, pet, critical illness, hospital indemnity, and accident insurance, as well as Employee Assistance Program (EAP) and digital mental health programs, parental leave, paid time off, paid holidays, volunteer time off, tuition assistance and much more! For more information regarding MetLife's U.S. benefits, please click here .
About MetLife
Recognized on Fortune magazine's list of the "World's Most Admired Companies", Fortune World's 25 Best Workplaces™, as well as the Fortune 100 Best Companies to Work For®, MetLife, through its subsidiaries and affiliates, is one of the world's leading financial services companies; providing insurance, annuities, employee benefits and asset management to individual and institutional customers. With operations in more than 40 markets, we hold leading positions in the United States, Latin America, Asia, Europe, and the Middle East.
As part of our New Frontier strategy, MetLife is building an AI-enabled, people-centered future. We're looking for people who bring curiosity, adaptability, and a growth mindset as we use AI to enhance how we serve customers, support communities, and evolve the way work gets done. At MetLife, AI is a responsible partner that supports human judgment, creativity, and continuous improvement while helping us build trust, inclusion, and long-term value.
Our purpose is simple - to help our colleagues, customers, communities, and the world at large create a more confident future. United by purpose and guided by our core values - Win Together, Do the Right Thing, Deliver Impact Over Activity, and Think Ahead - we're inspired to transform the next century in financial services. At MetLife, it's #AllTogetherPossible . Join us!
MetLife is an Equal Opportunity Employer. All employment decisions are made without regards to race, color, national origin, religion, creed, sex (including pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical conditions), sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, age, disability, marital or domestic/civil partnership status, genetic information, citizenship status (although applicants and employees must be legally authorized to work in the United States), uniformed service member or veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by applicable federal, state, or local law ("protected characteristics").
If you need an accommodation due to a disability, please email us at [email protected]. This information will be held in confidence and used only to determine an appropriate accommodation for the application process.
MetLife maintains a drug-free workplace.
This posting is for a current vacancy and is anticipated to remain open for at least 30 days from the listed posting date.
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