Security Architect & India Technical Team Lead

Job description

**This position is listed on behalf of a partner company, which manages all applications and next steps. Our partner is looking for a Security Architect & India Technical Team Lead based in India.** Take a leading role in shaping enterprise security architecture and protecting critical digital assets across cloud, application, identity, network, and data environments. In this fully remote position, you will combine deep technical expertise with strategic security leadership to strengthen resilience, reduce risk, and support secure business growth. You will define security standards, lead threat modeling, oversee security monitoring architecture, and guide engineering teams in building secure systems from the ground up. You will also lead technical responses to high-severity incidents, drive penetration testing initiatives, and address emerging threats involving artificial intelligence and cloud infrastructure. Working closely with distributed engineering and business teams, including stakeholders in the United States, you will translate complex security challenges into practical, risk-based solutions. This opportunity is ideal for a seasoned security professional who enjoys hands-on technical work, mentoring engineers, and influencing security strategy across a global organisation. ### Accountabilities: - **Security architecture and standards:** Define, maintain, and evolve reference architectures, security patterns, and technical design standards across cloud platforms, applications, networks, identity systems, and data environments. - **Threat modeling and architecture reviews:** Lead threat modeling for new products, major features, and infrastructure changes. Evaluate proposed designs, approve or reject solutions based on security requirements, and document accepted risks with clearly assigned owners and review deadlines. - **Identity and access management:** Design and strengthen identity architecture covering SSO, SAML, OIDC, privileged access, service-to-service authentication, secrets management, and least-privilege access controls. - **SIEM and security data architecture:** Own the technical architecture of security information and event management (SIEM) platforms and security data pipelines, including log onboarding, data normalisation, schema standards, retention policies, and ingestion cost optimisation. - **Incident response leadership:** Act as the senior technical escalation point for high-severity security incidents. Lead investigations, determine the scope of compromise, coordinate containment, conduct root-cause analysis, and own post-incident reviews and systemic remediation. - **Data protection and privacy:** Architect controls for encryption at rest and in transit, key management, tokenisation, data classification, secure data handling, and data residency requirements. - **Secure software development:** Establish secure SDLC architecture and integrate SAST, DAST, software composition analysis (SCA), infrastructure-as-code scanning, CI/CD security guardrails, and policy-as-code enforcement. - **Detection and response engineering:** Define logging, telemetry, monitoring, and alerting requirements for new and existing systems to improve threat detection and incident response capabilities. - **Security tooling and technology strategy:** Evaluate security technologies, conduct proofs of concept, establish measurable success criteria, and lead technical build-versus-buy assessments. - **Compliance architecture:** Map security architecture and technical controls to relevant frameworks and regulations, including SOC 2, ISO 27001, PCI DSS, GDPR, and India's Digital Personal Data Protection (DPDP) Act. - **Risk and technical debt management:** Maintain the security architecture roadmap and technical debt register, prioritising remediation according to business risk, exposure, and potential impact rather than relying solely on tool-generated findings. - **AI security and emerging threats:** Incorporate security considerations for large language models (LLMs) and agentic systems, including threat modeling, guardrail design, adversarial testing, and AI red-teaming practices. - **India technical team leadership:** Provide day-to-day technical leadership to the India-based security team, mentor engineers, establish technical direction, and promote consistent security engineering practices. - **Cross-functional collaboration:** Partner with engineering, security operations, and business stakeholders to embed security into system design, development, and operational processes. - **Security testing and validation:** Personally conduct and oversee penetration testing across web applications, APIs, and cloud environments, document findings, and ensure vulnerabilities are prioritised and addressed. - **Operational coordination:** Collaborate with US-based business teams and distributed colleagues, maintaining the required overlap with US Eastern business hours. ## Requirements: - **Professional experience:** At least 10 years of experience in information security, including 5 or more years in security architecture or senior security engineering roles. - **Technical leadership:** At least 3 years of experience leading technical teams, formally or through matrix structures, including mentoring experienced engineers and influencing technical decisions. - **Incident response expertise:** Demonstrated experience serving as the technical lead during high-severity security incidents, including investigation, compromise assessment, containment, root-cause analysis, and post-incident remediation. - **Hands-on penetration testing:** Proven practical experience scoping and executing penetration tests across web applications, APIs, and cloud environments, including independently producing technical reports and remediation recommendations. - **AI security expertise:** Current, practical understanding of LLM and agentic system threat models, security guardrails, and AI red-teaming techniques, supported by hands-on experience. - **Application security:** Strong knowledge of secure code review, the OWASP Top 10, OWASP API Security Top 10, threat modeling, and secure SDLC implementation. - **Cloud and infrastructure security:** Deep hands-on expertise in at least one major cloud platform—AWS, Azure, or GCP—along with experience securing containers, Kubernetes environments, and infrastructure-as-code. - **SIEM and security operations:** Practical experience configuring and operating SIEM and security monitoring solutions, including log source onboarding, parsing, data normalisation, and writing queries. - **Enterprise security architecture:** Demonstrated ownership of large-scale identity, network segmentation, access management, or data protection architecture. - **Compliance and risk management:** Working knowledge of at least two security or compliance frameworks, with experience designing and implementing controls that can withstand independent audits. - **Scripting and automation:** Proficiency in Python, Go, or an equivalent programming or scripting language, sufficient to build security tools, develop exploits, automate workflows, and independently validate security controls. - **Communication and stakeholder management:** Excellent written and verbal communication skills, with the ability to produce clear architecture documents, risk assessments, and penetration testing reports. - **Influence and collaboration:** Proven ability to influence engineering teams and stakeholders without relying on direct authority, communicate complex security concepts, and balance technical requirements with business priorities. - **Problem-solving and ownership:** Strong analytical skills, sound technical judgment, and the ability to manage competing priorities while taking ownership of security initiatives from assessment through resolution. - **US business collaboration:** Demonstrated experience working with US-based business teams and the ability to maintain the required overlap with US Eastern Time business hours. - **Remote working readiness:** Ability to work independently in a distributed environment with a dedicated, quiet workspace and a reliable internet connection of at least 50 Mbps. **Preferred qualifications and experience:** - Experience using AI to support penetration testing, including LLM-assisted reconnaissance, payload generation, vulnerability triage, or agentic offensive security tools. - Offensive security certifications such as OSCP, OSWE, OSEP, GPEN, GWAPT, or equivalent demonstrated expertise. - Security architecture certifications such as CISSP, CCSP, SABSA, or cloud-specific architecture credentials. - AI security credentials or contributions, such as involvement with the OWASP LLM Top 10, published AI red-team research, or demonstrated CTF and bug bounty results involving AI systems. - Experience working in a distributed, multi-region organisation with a significant engineering presence in India. - Familiarity with structured threat modeling methodologies such as STRIDE and PASTA, along with practical zero-trust architecture implementation. ## Benefits: - **Competitive annual salary:** ₹2,625,000–₹3,675,000 INR (₹26.25–₹36.75 LPA), depending on experience, technical expertise, role alignment, and other relevant factors. - **Fully remote work:** Work remotely from India with flexibility to manage your working arrangements around the team's collaboration requirements. - **Medical coverage:** Medical insurance to support your health and well-being. - **Accident insurance:** Insurance coverage designed to provide additional financial protection. - **Retirement benefits:** Access to employee retirement benefits. - **Paid holidays:** 12 company-paid holidays annually, plus 2 flexible holidays. - **Paid leave:** Privilege/earned leave, casual leave, and sick leave. - **Parental support:** Paid maternity and paternity leave. - **Wellness initiatives:** Access to weekly wellness events and programmes supporting employee well-being. - **Technical ownership and impact:** Opportunity to shape enterprise security architecture, influence organisation-wide security decisions, and lead high-impact technical initiatives. - **Leadership and professional growth:** Mentor engineers, establish security engineering standards, and expand expertise across cloud security, application security, incident response, and AI security. - **International collaboration:** Work with distributed teams and US-based stakeholders on strategic security initiatives. - **Structured working hours:** Eight working hours per day, excluding breaks, with four core overlap hours from **7:30 p.m. to 11:30 p.m. IST** and four flexible working hours in India Standard Time.