Subject Matter Expert; SME) Cybersecurity Architect

Job Title: Subject Matter Expert (SME) Cybersecurity Architect

Location:

Hybrid - 2 days a week on-site - Suitland, MD

Summary

We are seeking a Subject Matter Expert (SME) Cybersecurity Architect to join our team supporting a large-scale federal modernization program. This role owns security architecture across enterprise solutions, platforms, networks, identity, mobility/endpoints, data, and cloud, bridging cybersecurity policy and controls with implementable designs, evidence, and risk decisions throughout the system lifecycle.

This is a hands-on architecture role. You'll be expected to produce real security designs and see them through review, implementation, and operations, not just set policy from a distance.

This is a hybrid role based out of Washington, DC. Candidates must be U.S. citizens.

Key Responsibilities

1. Security Architecture & Design

• Develop and assess security architectures, patterns, requirements, controls integration, trust boundaries, data flows, and identity and segmentation design.
• Design logging, resilience, and operational safeguards into solution architecture.
• Translate federal and agency security requirements into practical design decisions, implementation actions, and residual-risk statements.

2. Reviews & Governance

• Participate in architecture compliance, technical design, engineering, security, and phase-gate reviews.
• Evaluate proposed deviations and waivers, and provide risk-informed recommendations for approval.
• Maintain security architecture artifacts, review findings, decisions, and risks in approved repositories, with clear traceability.

3. Cross-Domain Coordination

• Coordinate with solution, data, cloud/platform, network, identity, endpoint/mobility, and operations stakeholders to embed security into design from the start.
• Identify design gaps, threats, vulnerabilities, technical debt, and noncompliance early in the lifecycle, and propose mitigation options.
• Apply federal risk management framework and security control knowledge to real design decisions.
• Support authorization evidence, implementation readiness, and post-deployment validation as needed.
• Produce implementable security designs, review findings, mitigations, and risk decisions that engineers can act on.
• Communicate security architecture decisions, tradeoffs, and residual risk clearly to engineers, architects, program managers, and Government stakeholders.
• Support incident and problem learning to feed back into architecture improvements.

Requirements

12+ years of experience in cybersecurity, including significant time in security architecture or enterprise technical leadership.

• Working knowledge of federal risk management, security controls, authorization, continuous monitoring, zero trust, identity, network, endpoint, cloud, application, data, and logging considerations.
• Ability to interpret security requirements and produce implementable designs, review findings, mitigations, and risk decisions.
• Strong communication skills, with experience engaging engineers, architects, program managers, and Government decision-makers.

Nice to Have

Direct federal, government, or mission-critical system security architecture experience.

• CISSP, CCSP, CISM, SABSA, GIAC, cloud security, or comparable security credentials.
• Experience with NIST RMF/control families, zero trust, cloud security, identity, endpoint security, segmentation, logging/SIEM, and vulnerability management.
• Experience documenting security architecture views in Sparx/Prolaborate or comparable architecture/modeling tools.
• Advanced and Managed IT Services
• Agile Software Development
• Dev Sec Ops
• Cybersecurity
• Health IT
• C4
  
  ISR & SIGINT
• Data Center Engineering & Operations

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