Senior Director, Security Engineering and Architecture

Overview

The Cybersecurity Engineering & Architecture team designs, governs, implements, and continuously improves the technical security capabilities that protect Insight Global's people, data, platforms, clients, and business operations. The function partners closely with Cyber Operations, Governance/Risk/Compliance, Identity & Access Management, IT, Cloud, Network, Endpoint, Enterprise Architecture, Legal, Finance, Internal Audit, Strategic Sourcing, and business leadership to make security effective, scalable, operationally sound, and aligned to business priorities.

We are seeking a Senior Director of Security Engineering & Architecture to lead the enterprise security engineering and architecture function, own the multi-year technical security strategy and roadmap, and serve as a senior advisor to the CISO, technology executives, and business leadership. This role is accountable for translating cybersecurity strategy into architecture direction, engineering priorities, enterprise standards, delivery plans, and measurable risk reduction across a complex and evolving enterprise environment. As the CISO's external commitments grow, this role serves as the internal anchor for the cybersecurity function, ensuring that engineering, architecture, governance support, and emerging risk programs continue to deliver without interruption.

This role leads through both people and influence. The Senior Director manages managers and senior technical talent, develops the next layer of security leadership, and acts as the decision-integration point when security questions span multiple domains, teams, or business units. The role requires executive judgment, practical risk-based decision-making, and the ability to create clarity where ownership, urgency, or technical direction is ambiguous. Scope in this role is expected to evolve with the business, and the right candidate will be comfortable absorbing new responsibilities as organizational needs change.

Responsibilities

Enterprise Strategy & Architecture Governance

• Own and drive the multi-year security engineering and architecture roadmap, translating cybersecurity strategy and business priorities into clear capabilities, initiatives, sequencing, and measurable outcomes.

• Set and maintain enterprise security architecture standards, reference patterns, technical guardrails, design expectations, and implementation principles across cloud, identity, endpoint, network, logging, data protection, application, and SaaS domains.

• Own the lifecycle of enterprise cybersecurity policies and standards, keeping them consolidated, current, audit-ready, and aligned to the control frameworks the business operates under.

• Provide senior-level direction for technical security programs, including tenant security baselines, GovCloud/CMMC readiness, network security modernization, segmentation, logging and monitoring maturity, data protection, and platform rationalization.

• Ensure architecture decisions are practical, risk-informed, scalable, auditable, and operationally supportable by the teams expected to run them.

• Lead, develop, and hold accountable a multi-discipline Security Engineering & Architecture organization, including engineering managers, architects, and senior individual contributors.

• Develop the leadership layer beneath this role through coaching, delegation of ownership, succession planning, and clear expectations for delivery quality and technical judgment.

• Define operating rhythms, delivery expectations, prioritization models, documentation standards, and visible work practices that create clarity, accountability, and predictable execution across the team.

• Maintain structured, high-bar hiring practices, including consistent candidate evaluation frameworks, and continue building career path architecture in partnership with HR and Compensation.

• Protect team focus by challenging unclear intake, poorly scoped asks, and priority drift; ensure work aligns to risk, business impact, and agreed roadmap priorities.

• Serve as a trusted cybersecurity partner to senior leaders across Legal, Finance, Internal Audit, Strategic Sourcing, and the company's delivery and business organizations on security-sensitive decisions and client-facing risk questions.

• Lead technical and security due diligence for acquisitions, strategic partnerships, and third-party engagements; independently assess claims and posture, and architect de-risked paths that let the business move forward with full visibility into the risk.

• Own the security dimension of client-facing commitments, including security questionnaires, contractual security requirements, and client audit support, ensuring that what the business promises externally is operationally supportable.

• Translate complex security risk into business language so leaders can make informed decisions about tradeoffs, risk acceptance, regulatory obligations, client commitments, and growth initiatives.

• Present security posture, risk trends, and roadmap progress to executive leadership, and support the CISO in preparing Board-level risk reporting.

• Partner with Governance, Risk & Compliance and Cyber Operations to ensure policies, standards, audit evidence, and technical control implementation reflect operational reality.

• Establish and reinforce clear ownership boundaries across Cybersecurity Engineering, Architecture, IAM, SecOps, Endpoint, Cloud, Network, and adjacent IT teams.

• Own the enterprise AI security standard, including acceptable use policy, access and exception frameworks, and technical control strategies for sanctioned and unsanctioned AI usage.

• Lead security architecture and engineering engagement for enterprise AI governance, AI usage controls, AI observability, and secure agentic AI development standards.

• Partner with internal AI development teams, Legal, Risk, IT, and business teams to define practical guardrails that enable innovation while protecting sensitive data and client commitments.

• Drive detection engineering, exception management, access patterns, and observability requirements for AI tooling across the enterprise.

• Track emerging risks, including AI, non-human identities, data exposure, quantum/post-quantum considerations, and evolving regulatory or client expectations, and translate them into roadmap priorities.

• Own delivery accountability for high-impact security engineering and architecture programs from strategy through design, implementation, operational readiness, and measurement.

• Own vendor strategy and the security platform budget for the function, including tool rationalization, consolidation of duplicative platforms, contract negotiation support, and documented cost discipline.

• Set and enforce standards for vendor engagement conduct across the function, ensuring transparent, ethical interactions with the vendor community.

• Identify, escalate, and drive resolution of technical, delivery, people, dependency, and governance risks before they become blockers.

• Represent Security Engineering & Architecture in executive discussions, governance forums, vendor conversations, planning sessions, audits, and major technology decision points.

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Information Security, Engineering, Information Systems, or a related technical field, or equivalent practical experience.

• 15+ years of experience across cybersecurity engineering, security architecture, cloud/infrastructure, identity, network security, platform engineering, or related technical domains.

• 8+ years of leadership experience, including experience managing managers and leading multi-discipline security or technology teams in enterprise environments.

• Demonstrated experience owning multi-year security strategy, architecture direction, technical roadmaps, or large-scale security transformation programs.

• Experience advising executive leadership on security matters tied to business transactions, such as acquisitions, strategic partnerships, client contracts, or major vendor decisions.

• Strong working knowledge across multiple security domains such as cloud security, identity and access management, endpoint security, network security, logging/SIEM, data protection, application security, vulnerability management, and governance/control alignment.

• Experience operating in a risk-informed environment where practical tradeoffs, stakeholder alignment, and business enablement are required alongside security rigor.

• Proven ability to influence senior stakeholders, resolve ambiguity, communicate clearly with technical and non-technical audiences, and drive decisions across teams that do not directly report into the role.

• Experience building, scaling, or maturing teams, operating models, engineering standards, hiring practices, or career development frameworks.

• Experience with Microsoft security and productivity platforms including Microsoft 365, Entra ID, Microsoft Intune, Microsoft Defender, Microsoft Purview, and related Microsoft cloud security capabilities.

• Experience with regulated environments, audits, or control frameworks such as CMMC, SOC 2, NIST CSF, NIST 800-171, CIS Controls, ISO 27001, or comparable standards.

• Experience with cloud and hybrid environments across Azure, AWS, SaaS platforms, endpoint management, and enterprise network architectures.

• Experience evaluating or implementing AI security, AI governance, AI observability, data classification, DLP, non-human identity controls, or secure agentic AI development practices.

• Experience leading technical due diligence for M&A, advising on client-facing security requirements or security questionnaire risk, or driving vendor rationalization and enterprise technology investment decisions.

• Experience supporting executive or Board-level risk reporting.

• Professional certifications such as CISSP, CISM, CCSP, GIAC, CRISC, or similar are helpful but not required.

• A published multi-year security engineering and architecture roadmap exists, is aligned to business strategy, and delivery against it is predictable and visible.

• The Security Engineering & Architecture function operates with clear ownership, visible priorities, mature engineering practices, and reporting that is outcome-based rather than activity-based.

• Security architecture decisions are trusted, documented, risk-informed, and embedded early enough to guide technology programs rather than react to them after the fact.

• Cross-functional partners view Cybersecurity as a practical business enabler: clear about risk, firm on non-negotiables, pragmatic in execution, and committed to finding the safest path to yes.

• Business leaders bring security questions to this role early, including transaction diligence and client commitments, because the function has a track record of enabling outcomes rather than blocking them.

• Managers and senior technical contributors under this role have clarity on expectations, ownership, development paths, and what good looks like at each level, and at least one leader beneath this role is developing toward broader scope.

• AI security, emerging-risk governance, and technical control expectations are formalized enough to support business innovation without creating unmanaged data, identity, or compliance risk.

• The CISO and senior technology leaders can rely on this role as the internal anchor for security engineering, architecture, prioritization, and cross-functional decision support.