Identity Security Architect

Gibson Dunn is a leading global law firm, advising clients on significant transactions and disputes. Our exceptional teams craft and deploy creative legal strategies that are meticulously tailored to every matter, however complex or high-stakes. The firm’s work is distinguished by a unique combination of precision and vision.

Based in Los Angeles or New York, the Identity Security Architect plays a critical role in the InfoSec team, leading the design, implementation, and assessment of identity security controls across the firm’s hybrid infrastructure. This position ensures compliance with Information Security and IS policies while aligning with industry best practices for identity security and zero trust.

This role collaborates closely with the IT Architect, Cloud Administrators, and senior leadership on identity and zero trust operations. The Identity Security Architect will interface with technical teams, legal and compliance stakeholders, external auditors, and cloud service providers.

Responsibilities include:

• Define and own the firm’s enterprise identity security architecture and multi-year roadmap for workforce, privileged, service, and machine identities across hybrid and multi-cloud environments.
• Establish identity security principles, reference architectures, standards, and reusable design patterns aligned with Zero Trust, least privilege, defense in depth, and regulatory requirements.
• Lead the architecture and evolution of identity and access management capabilities, including identity governance and administration, access management, privileged access management, directory services, federation, single sign-on, multifactor authentication, passwordless authentication, and secrets management.
• Architect identity solutions across Microsoft Entra ID, Active Directory, cloud platforms, SaaS applications, on-premises systems, and third-party services, ensuring consistent control enforcement and interoperability.
• Design and govern identity lifecycle processes for joiners, movers, and leavers, including authoritative sources, provisioning, deprovisioning, role and entitlement models, access requests, approvals, certifications, and segregation-of-duties controls.
• Develop the firm’s privileged access strategy, including administrative tiering, just-in-time and just-enough access, session controls, break-glass access, credential vaulting, and protection of high-value identities.
• Define conditional access, authentication assurance, device trust, session management, and risk-based access policies that balance security, usability, resilience, and business requirements.
• Provide architecture leadership for non-human identities, including service accounts, workload identities, managed identities, application credentials, API access, certificates, keys, and secrets throughout their lifecycle.
• Lead identity threat modeling and architecture risk assessments for new technologies, applications, cloud services, mergers, and strategic initiatives; document risks and drive practical remediation plans.
• Partner with Security Operations to define identity telemetry, detections, response playbooks, and recovery requirements for credential theft, privilege escalation, account compromise, and other identity-based attacks.
• Embed identity security requirements into application development, DevSecOps, infrastructure-as-code, cloud onboarding, and technology procurement processes.
• Chair or lead identity architecture and design reviews, evaluate exceptions, and ensure solutions conform to approved standards before implementation.
• Assess identity security platforms and service providers, lead technical evaluations and proof-of-concept activities, and provide recommendations based on security, scalability, integration, operational support, and total cost.
• Define identity security metrics, control health indicators, and maturity measures; communicate risks, priorities, dependencies, and roadmap progress to technical and senior leadership.
• Maintain identity-related policies, standards, architecture decisions, data flows, control mappings, and operational handoff documentation to support auditability and sustainable operations.
• Serve as the senior technical authority for identity security, mentor architects and engineers, and coordinate cross-functional delivery among Information Security, Infrastructure, Cloud, Applications, Legal, Compliance, and business stakeholders.
• Remain current on identity attack techniques, security technologies, industry standards, and regulatory developments, translating relevant changes into the firm’s architecture and control roadmap.

Qualifications:

• Expert knowledge of identity and access management architecture, including identity governance and administration, access management, privileged access management, directory services, federation, single sign-on, multifactor authentication, passwordless authentication, and secrets management.
• Deep expertise with Microsoft Entra ID and Active Directory, including hybrid identity, Conditional Access, identity protection, authentication methods, administrative tiering, and privileged identity management.
• Demonstrated ability to develop identity security strategies, reference architectures, standards, design patterns, and multi-year roadmaps for complex hybrid and multi-cloud environments.
• Strong command of Zero Trust principles and their practical application across identity, devices, applications, data, networks, infrastructure, and security operations.
• Experience designing risk-based access controls using least privilege, continuous verification, explicit trust decisions, device posture, authentication assurance, session controls, and identity risk signals.
• Knowledge of identity lifecycle governance, including joiner-mover-leaver processes, automated provisioning and deprovisioning, role and entitlement design, access certifications, segregation of duties, and access policy enforcement.
• Experience securing privileged and non-human identities, including service accounts, workload identities, application credentials, managed identities, certificates, keys, APIs, and secrets.
• Working knowledge of identity protocols and standards, including SAML, OAuth 2.0, OpenID Connect, SCIM, Kerberos, LDAP, FIDO2, and public key infrastructure.
• Deep knowledge of cloud platforms, including Azure, AWS, and GCP, and their native identity, entitlement, workload identity, and security services.
• Ability to perform identity threat modelling and architecture risk assessments and to translate identity attack techniques, control gaps, and regulatory obligations into actionable security requirements.
• Knowledge of relevant security frameworks and regulatory requirements, including NIST, ISO 27001, SOC, GLBA, HIPAA, GDPR, and applicable legal-industry obligations.
• Strong written and verbal communication skills, with the ability to explain complex identity risks and architecture decisions to technical teams, business stakeholders, auditors, and senior leadership.
• Proven ability to provide technical leadership, mentor architects and engineers, lead cross-functional initiatives, influence without direct authority, and drive adoption of enterprise identity and Zero Trust standards.

Experience:

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Information Systems, or related field.
• Minimum 10 years of experience in information technology with 5+ years focused on identity and zero trust security.
• Relevant identity security and Zero Trust certifications, such as Microsoft Certified: Identity and Access Administrator Associate, Certified Identity and Access Manager (CIAM), Certified Identity Governance Expert (CIGE), or vendor-specific privileged access management certifications; broader security architecture certifications such as CISSP, GDSA, or SABSA is also desirable.

Gibson Dunn will consider for employment qualified Applicants with Criminal Histories in a manner consistent with the requirements of local law.

Compensation & Benefits:

The annual compensation range for this position is $180,000 - $220,000. The salary offered within this range will depend upon qualifications and other operational considerations.

Benefits offered for this position include health care; retirement benefits; paid days off, including sick time, and vacation time; parental leave; basic life insurance; Flexible Spending Accounts; as well as discretionary, performance-based bonuses.

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Gibson Dunn is committed to ensuring equal employment opportunities for all qualified applicants, including individuals with disabilities. We strive to ensure an inclusive and accessible hiring experience. The Firm will provide reasonable accommodations to qualified individuals with disabilities to enable participation in the application and recruitment process, unless doing so would impose an undue hardship, in accordance with applicable laws and regulations.


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