Lead Application Security Architect
Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, Inc. (FINRA)2 days ago
Rockville, MD, USAStaff+
Base Salary
$114k - $249k/yr
Responsibilities
- Design and establish enterprise application security architecture frameworks, reference models, roadmaps, baselines, secure coding standards, and reusable security patterns.
- Architect authentication, authorization, encryption, secure communication, secure data handling, API security, OAuth/OIDC flows, API gateways, and rate limiting.
- Design security architecture and controls for GenAI and LLM applications, including RAG, agentic workflows, guardrails, prompt handling, embeddings, vector databases, and model artifacts.
- Identify, validate, prioritize, and resolve security risks, requirements deficiencies, control discrepancies, and security findings.
- Lead security control operation, monitoring, compliance enforcement, policy development, standards development, and technology evaluation.
- Direct staff and strategic security initiatives, mentor junior staff, improve internal processes, represent security on external committees, and provide backup management coverage.
Requirements
- Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Information Systems, or a related discipline, or equivalent training and/or work experience.
- At least seven years of related experience.
- Direct experience leading security architecture, network and systems security design, secure software assurance, intrusion detection, defense and incident response, security configuration management, access control design and implementation, and security policy and standards development.
- In-depth knowledge of more than one communications protocol and broad knowledge across information security domains.
- Experience managing multiple cybersecurity tools, including configuration assessment, log aggregation, integrity verification, web application security testing, network access control, network intrusion prevention, and endpoint security solutions.
- Master’s degree and financial services industry experience are preferred.
- Strong technical communication, planning, organization, relationship-building, prioritization, adaptability, and ability to learn new technologies are required.
Benefits
- Hybrid work environment with defined in-person presence requirements; occasional travel and extended hours may be required.
- Employees may be eligible for a discretionary bonus, and non-exempt employees may be eligible for overtime pay.
- Comprehensive health, dental, vision, life, disability, long-term care, business travel accident, and legal insurance options are available.
- Immediate 401(k) participation and vesting with company match, plus potential eligibility for an additional FINRA-funded retirement contribution.
- Tuition reimbursement, commuter benefits, adoption assistance, backup family care, surrogacy benefits, employee assistance, and wellness programs are provided.
- Paid time off starts at 15 days and may increase to 25 days, plus personal days, sick days, volunteer service days, paid holidays, military, jury duty, bereavement, voting, family care, childbirth, and parental leave.
Categories
About Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, Inc. (FINRA)
FINRA is the U.S. self-regulatory organization for broker-dealers, writing and enforcing rules, examining firms, surveilling markets, and running investor tools like BrokerCheck. A nonprofit formed in 2007 and headquartered in Washington, DC, it oversees compliance for over 3,300 firms and 610,000 registered brokers. FINRA is funded by member assessments and regulatory fees rather than taxpayer dollars, and builds large-scale data and surveillance systems used across U.S. securities markets.