Senior Cybersecurity Architect (Cloud)

Purpose and scope The Senior Cloud Security Architect is a hands-on senior engineering position that designs, builds, deploys, and maintains security controls across commercial and government cloud environments, including Microsoft 365 Commercial and GCC High, Azure, AWS, and hybrid services. Its scope includes software, platform, infrastructure, virtual desktop, and approved cloud-based artificial intelligence services. The role leads technical design for complex work while remaining directly involved in configuration, infrastructure as code, deployment automation, testing, troubleshooting, control validation, and operational support. A central responsibility is establishing and implementing the security patterns that allow the organization to adopt generative AI, machine learning, enterprise copilots, and agentic systems safely across commercial, government, and CUI environments. It applies government, defense-industry, privacy, and international security frameworks to practical technical designs. This role reports to the Senior Cybersecurity Architect & Senior Manager. Essential responsibilities Cloud security engineering and design Design and implement security controls and reusable patterns across Microsoft 365 Commercial and GCC High, Azure, AWS, and hybrid services, including cloud guardrails, landing zones, workload protections, and virtual desktop environments. Design and implement security architectures for generative AI, machine learning, enterprise copilot, and agentic systems, including secure access, data protection, identity, logging, content safety, and human-oversight controls. Evaluate AI services and integrations for threats such as prompt injection, data leakage, excessive permissions, insecure model or plugin connections, and unauthorized use of sensitive or CUI data. Establish reusable governance and technical patterns for the secure adoption, monitoring, testing, and lifecycle management of AI capabilities across commercial, government, and hybrid cloud environments. Perform hands-on configuration, testing, troubleshooting, and tuning for complex cloud security implementations and platform integrations. Build and maintain reusable infrastructure-as-code components and deployment automation for security policies, controls, and platform onboarding. Lead focused design reviews and threat modeling for new services, major changes, and higher-risk use cases, then help implement the approved approach. Cloud security platforms and operations Engineer and administer cloud security posture management and workload protection capabilities, including environment onboarding, policy configuration, security recommendations, coverage, alert integrations, and platform health. Lead complex platform changes and escalations while sharing implementation, tuning, and support work with the Cloud Security Engineer. Integrate cloud security telemetry with enterprise monitoring and response platforms and support escalated investigations when cloud expertise is needed. Partner with Vulnerability Management on exposure prioritization and tracking and work with cloud platform owners on practical remediation approaches. Government cloud and compliance engineering Design and validate technical controls that support CMMC and applicable NIST requirements, including NIST SP 800-171 and NIST SP 800-172. Develop secure patterns for Microsoft 365 GCC High and CUI workloads that account for tenant and security boundaries, government-cloud service limitations, data handling requirements, and controlled connectivity with commercial environments. Translate applicable requirements from DFARS, ITAR, ISO 27001, Australia DISP, UK Cyber Essentials Plus, GDPR, and other relevant frameworks into implementable technical control objectives in coordination with Risk and Compliance. Lead technical risk assessments and control testing, document compensating controls and exceptions, and provide implementation evidence and technical support for internal and external assessments. Artificial intelligence and agent security Design and implement reusable security patterns for AI and machine-learning services, enterprise copilots, generative AI applications, retrieval-augmented generation, agents, model and data integrations, and automated tools. Define and configure identity and access controls, data-source permissions, agent and workload identities, secrets handling, execution boundaries, sandboxing, tool restrictions, human approval controls, network egress, and audit logging. Lead threat modeling and hands-on security testing for risks such as prompt injection, indirect prompt injection, sensitive-data exposure, unsafe tool execution, excessive agency, over-privileged connectors, and manipulation of models or grounding content. Evaluate AI platforms, models, services, and new features for security, privacy, data residency, government-cloud availability, CUI suitability, and integration risk; document required controls and approved conditions of use. Develop reference implementations, infrastructure-as-code components, deployment automation, and validation methods that allow AI safeguards to be applied consistently. Define AI telemetry and investigation requirements with Security Operations and Detection Engineering, then support escalated investigations, control improvements, and secure recovery when specialized cloud or AI expertise is needed. Collaboration and technical leadership Integrate Identity, Network Security, Data Security, Vulnerability Management, and Security Operations requirements into cloud implementations while keeping ownership with the responsible teams. Provide practical design and engineering guidance to cloud platform owners, application teams, IT, and connected program sites, including options and tradeoffs when requirements compete. Maintain configuration standards, implementation guides, reusable deployment patterns, diagrams, threat models, opera