IAM - Senior Lead / Architect

Role: IAM - Senior Lead / Architect

Location: Seattle Onsite

1 Position

JD

Description and Location

15+ years experience.

What You'll Do

• Define and own the target-state architecture and reference designs for the identity security platform across BeyondTrust (Password Safe, EPM, PRA), Microsoft Entra ID, Active Directory, and SailPoint IDN.

• Lead the architecture and deployment strategy for large-scale identity security modernization initiatives — privileged access transformation, identity governance modernization, cloud identity adoption, Active Directory and hybrid-identity modernization, and Zero Trust identity patterns.

• Establish architecture standards, design patterns, integration blueprints, and guardrails that the build/engineering teams implement against, and serve as design authority through architecture and design reviews.

• Develop migration and deployment strategies — sequencing, cutover, rollback, and risk mitigation — for moving large user and system populations onto modern identity platforms with minimal disruption.

• Architect integrations across identity platforms, cloud (Azure, AWS, GCP), and enterprise/SaaS applications using APIs, federation, and provisioning standards (SAML, OAuth2/OIDC, SCIM, Kerberos, LDAP).

• Drive phishing-resistant authentication and least-privilege/PAM architecture across the enterprise.

• Partner with engineering leads, security architecture, platform/cloud teams, product, and program management to translate architecture into delivery roadmaps and executable workstreams.

• Provide technical leadership and guidance to build engineers; review designs and key implementations to ensure alignment to architecture and security requirements.

• Identify and document architectural risks, dependencies, and trade-offs; present recommendations and decisions to engineering and leadership audiences.

• Contribute to the security posture and control objectives of the modernization program, ensuring designs meet Nordstrom security, compliance, and data-handling requirements.

• Leverage AI tooling to accelerate architecture analysis, design documentation, and solution evaluation.

• What You Bring

• Bachelor's or master's degree in Computer Science, Cybersecurity, Information Technology, or equivalent education and experience.

• 15+ years of security or identity engineering experience, including significant experience as an identity/security architect on enterprise-scale environments.

• Demonstrated experience leading large-scale identity security modernization or transformation programs end to end — from target-state architecture through production deployment.

• Deep architecture-level expertise across two or more of the following, with strong working knowledge of the rest: BeyondTrust, Microsoft Entra ID, Active Directory, Okta, and SailPoint.

• Strong command of identity architecture fundamentals: authentication/authorization protocols (SAML, OAuth2/OIDC, SCIM, Kerberos, LDAP), federation, MFA and phishing-resistant authentication, RBAC/ABAC, least privilege, tiered administration, and Zero Trust identity.

• Proven experience designing integrations and migrations across hybrid and multi-cloud environments at scale.

• Experience setting architecture standards and acting as a design authority across multiple delivery teams.

• Excellent communication skills — able to align engineers, architects, and senior leadership around architecture decisions and trade-offs.

• Ability to operate independently in a fast-paced, multi-workstream program with high ambiguity.

• Nice to Have:

• Architecture or security certifications such as CISSP, SABSA, TOGAF, Microsoft Identity & Access Administrator (SC-300), or SailPoint Certified Engineer.

• Experience with infrastructure-as-code (Terraform, Ansible) and CI/CD as enablers of identity platform delivery.

• Experience with identity threat detection and response (ITDR) and integrating identity signals into SIEM/SOAR.

• Large-scale retail, ecommerce, or other high-transaction enterprise experience.