Principal Cybersecurity Architect – Network Security Posture Management

Principal Cybersecurity Architect – Network Security Posture Management

About IonQ:
IonQ, Inc. [NYSE: IONQ] is the world’s leading quantum platform and merchant supplier delivering integrated quantum solutions across computing, networking, sensing, and security. IonQ’s newest generation of quantum computers, the IonQ Tempo, is the latest in a line of cutting‑edge systems that have been helping customers and partners including Amazon Web Services and AstraZeneca achieve 20x performance results and accelerate innovation in drug discovery, materials science, financial modeling, logistics, cybersecurity, and defense.

In 2025, the company achieved 99.99% two‑qubit gate fidelity, setting a world record in quantum computing performance. Headquartered in College Park, Maryland, IonQ has operations in California, Colorado, Massachusetts, Tennessee, Washington, Italy, South Korea, Sweden, Switzerland, Canada, and the United Kingdom. Our quantum computing services are available through all major cloud providers, while we also meet the needs of networking and sensing customers across land, sea, air, and space.

IonQ is making quantum platforms more accessible and impactful than ever before.

Location: This role can work onsite or hybrid in San Francisco Bay Area, CA.
Travel: Up to 10%.
Job : 1560

The Role: We are looking for a Principal Cybersecurity Architect to own the security posture strategy for our Network Security Posture Management (NSPM) platform. You’ll work at the intersection of network security, compliance, and platform engineering—defining how the platform assesses, measures, and enforces security posture across large, heterogeneous network environments.

In this role, your primary focus is designing and codifying security posture assessment rules that map network device configurations and behaviors against established security standards—and building the framework that makes it easy to onboard new standards as they emerge. You bring deep NSPM expertise, a strong understanding of network security principles, and the ability to translate complex compliance requirements into actionable, automatable rules that operate at scale across thousands of devices.

• Design and own the security posture assessment rule framework, defining how device configurations, network behaviors, and access controls are evaluated against security standards including NIST CSF, CIS Benchmarks, ISO 27001, FISMA, and FedRAMP.
• Build and maintain a scalable rule authoring and lifecycle management system that allows new security standards and custom organizational policies to be onboarded, versioned, and deployed without platform re-architecture.
• Continuously monitor the evolving threat and compliance landscape—translating emerging standards, regulatory changes, and new CVEs into updated posture assessment rules that keep the platform current and defensible.
• Define the risk scoring and prioritization model that aggregates individual posture findings into a coherent, actionable security posture score at the device, segment, and enterprise level.
• Collaborate with platform engineering teams to ensure posture assessment rules execute efficiently at scale across large network device fleets, with well‑defined APIs for rule ingestion, evaluation, and results delivery.
• Engage with enterprise customers and internal stakeholders to understand their compliance requirements, translating them into platform capabilities and serving as the authoritative security subject matter expert for the product.
• Partner with Product and Engineering to shape the NSPM roadmap, ensuring security posture capabilities remain ahead of the regulatory curve and deliver measurable value to network security and compliance teams.
• Mentor engineers and security analysts on posture rule design, threat modeling, and compliance mapping, establishing rigorous review processes that ensure accuracy and defensibility of every assessment rule shipped.

• 12+ years of experience in cybersecurity, network security, or security architecture, with at least 5 years in a senior or principal capacity focused on network security posture, compliance, or policy enforcement at scale.
• Deep, hands‑on…