AWS Security Architect - Cloud Transformation
Job Description
[Up to c. $1,100 per day | Contract | Remote Working - *NYC Location Preferred]
Role Overview
We’re supporting a large, globally distributed financial institution undertaking a significant transition of core applications and data platforms into AWS. To support this programme, the organisation is engaging an experienced Cloud Security Architect on a contract basis to define how security is designed, governed, and embedded throughout the migration journey. This role is not about operating an existing cloud estate or responding to security tickets. Instead, it sits at the front end of transformation, shaping security architecture decisions before systems reach production. You’ll work closely with application owners, platform teams, and senior stakeholders to ensure cloud adoption is secure, scalable, and aligned with business priorities from day one...
Key Responsibilities
- Establish reusable cloud security design patterns and guardrails that teams can adopt consistently across AWS environments
- Perform detailed architecture and design reviews for applications migrating from on-premise or hybrid environments into AWS
- Evaluate migration approaches (rehost, replatform, refactor) and define security controls appropriate to each strategy
- Lead threat modelling workshops, identifying design-stage risks and ensuring mitigations are addressed early
- Act as the security authority for cloud design approvals, validating configurations before production deployment
- Define and enforce standards for data protection, encryption, key management, and classification in AWS
- Translate technical risk into clear, business-relevant language for application owners and sponsors
- Partner with engineering, infrastructure, and enterprise architecture teams to ensure security enables - rather than blocks - delivery
- Contribute to longer-term cloud security strategy as AWS adoption matures
What You’ll Bring…
- 5-8 years’ experience across cybersecurity, with a strong emphasis on cloud or security architecture
- Deep, hands-on knowledge of AWS security services and primitives (e.g. IAM, VPC design, KMS, GuardDuty, security groups)
- Proven experience supporting cloud migration initiatives, including hybrid and on-prem to cloud transitions
- Strong background conducting architecture assessments and design validations
- Practical understanding of how security controls affect usability, scalability, and delivery velocity
- Ability to communicate effectively with both senior business stakeholders and deeply technical engineers
- Confidence operating as an independent contributor, owning design decisions and influencing outcomes without direct authority
- Exposure to Infrastructure-as-Code and DevSecOps practices (e.g. Terraform, CI/CD security integration)
- (Preferred) Familiarity with cloud-aligned control frameworks (e.g. NIST, ISO 27001, SOC 2)
- (Preferred) Industry certifications such as CISSP or CCSP
...
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