Principal Security Architect

At Lilly, the work is demanding because patients are waiting. We unite caring with discovery to help make life better for people around the world, knowing that every decision, every detail, and every day matters. Headquartered in Indianapolis, Indiana, our over 50,000 employees around the globe take on complex challenges to discover and deliver life-changing medicines, strengthen how health is understood and managed, and support the communities we serve. This is hard, urgent, selfless work—but it’s work worth doing. If you’re driven by purpose and ready to bring your best to work that truly matters for patients, we invite you to join us.

Principal Security Architect

Main Attributes

Role summary

Security Architecture & Engineering needs a senior architect to serve as the dedicated security architect for a major strategic program. The program is cloud-heavy, built primarily on AWS with additional cloud platforms in scope, and its workloads handle trade secrets and highly sensitive intellectual property. This person owns the security architecture end to end and is the definitive technical voice on cloud and application security for the program.

Qualifications

Deep security expertise across cloud, application security, identity, and integration patterns. Experience designing controls for workloads handling trade secrets or sensitive intellectual property. Background is open—building and operating secure systems, security engineering, incident response, and security architecture are all relevant paths, provided the depth supports sound judgment on real designs.

Key responsibilities

Own the security architecture and risk posture for the assigned program; lead architecture reviews, threat modeling, and risk assessments; drive risk acceptance where residual risk remains; and develop reference architectures, design patterns, and security guidance from recurring requirements.

Collaboration

This role works directly with program leadership, engineering teams, and partners across Security Architecture & Engineering, View email address on click.appcast.io, privacy, legal, and audit.

What You’ll Be Doing

As Principal Security Architect on the Security Architecture & Engineering team, you will be the dedicated security architect for a major strategic program built primarily on AWS, with workloads handling trade secrets and highly sensitive intellectual property. You will own its security architecture across cloud platforms, data flows, identity, and third‑party integrations, and lead architecture reviews, threat modeling, and risk assessments. You will develop reference architectures and design patterns that scale across the program, provide technical direction to engineers supporting the work, and ensure technology is deployed securely and in alignment with enterprise security standards.

How You’ll Succeed

Technical authority

You will be senior enough to be taken seriously by experienced engineering leaders and technical enough to demonstrate why a proposed design does not hold up—and to show teams a viable secure alternative.

Cloud security depth

You will bring hands‑on cloud security architecture expertise—identity and access management, network architecture, workload protection, encryption and key management, and posture management—with enough breadth to design consistently across a multi‑cloud environment.

Protecting sensitive intellectual property

You will design and review controls for workloads handling trade secrets, reasoning about segmentation, access boundaries, egress paths, encryption and key management, monitoring, and third‑party exposure, and holding designs to a standard appropriate to what they protect.

Security built in early

You will engage at design time rather than at the end, grounded in a strong understanding of secure application development and the secure software development lifecycle, so security is built in rather than bolted on.

Risk evaluation and mitigation

You will evaluate technical security risk, design mitigations appropriate to the exposure, and communicate both the risk and the recommended approach clearly to technical and non‑technical audiences.

Key Responsibilities

• Own the security architecture and risk posture for an assigned strategic program spanning cloud platforms, data flows, identity, and third‑party integrations.
• Conduct architecture and design reviews, threat modeling, and risk assessments across cloud platforms, application components, identity, and integrations.
• Design and review controls for workloads handling trade secrets and highly sensitive intellectual property, covering segmentation, access boundaries, egress controls, encryption and key management, and monitoring.
• Establish secure cloud architecture patterns and extend them consistently across the cloud platforms in scope.
• Apply threat modeling frameworks alongside recognized industry security standards, frameworks, and best practices when evaluating designs and documenting technical guidance.
• Perform threat analysis and modeling to enable business and technical partners to deliver secure solutions integrated with the secure development and operations lifecycle.
• Drive risk acceptance where residual risk cannot be eliminated, framing the decision accurately, securing approvals, and documenting the outcome.
• Develop reference architectures, design patterns, and security guidance from recurring requirements, and partner across Security Architecture & Engineering to bring the right expertise into engagements.
• Provide technical leadership and mentorship to architects and engineers supporting the program.

What You Should Bring

• Security depth sufficient to make sound judgment calls on real designs. Backgrounds vary and all of the following are relevant paths: building and operating secure systems, security engineering, incident response, penetration testing, or security architecture.
• Depth in at least one major cloud platform (AWS, Azure, or GCP), covering identity and access management, network architecture, workload protection, encryption and key management, and cloud security posture management, with the ability to apply that depth across additional providers.
• Demonstrated experience securing workloads handling trade secrets or highly sensitive intellectual property, including segmentation, access boundaries, and egress controls.
• Strong understanding of secure application development and the secure software development lifecycle, including threat mitigation techniques.
• Strong experience in threat analysis and modeling, and a solid understanding of cybersecurity engineering and operations.
• Exceptional critical thinking and analytical reasoning, with proven ability to define and influence security strategy while also guiding tactical work.
• Ability to translate technical risk into clear business language and to document risk decisions in a form that holds up to audit and executive review.
• Excellent communication and presentation skills, with the ability to adapt messaging for technical and non‑technical audiences.
• Experience developing and documenting architecture references, security guidelines, and standards, and mentoring more junior architects and engineers.

Your Basic Qualifications

• High School Diploma/equivalent with 4+ years of experience in Cyber Security, Information Technology, or a related field.
• 8+ years of professional experience across security, software engineering, cloud engineering, or a combination, including hands‑on cloud security work.
• Qualified applicants must be authorized to work in the United States on a full‑time basis. Lilly will not provide support for or sponsor work authorization or visas for this role, including but not limited to F-1 CPT, F-1 OPT, F-1 STEM OPT, J-1, H-1B, TN, O-1, E-3, H-1B1, or L-1.

Lilly is dedicated to helping individuals with disabilities to actively engage in the workforce, ensuring equal opportunities when vying for positions. If you require accommodation to submit a resume for a position at Lilly, please complete the accommodation request form ( for further assistance. Please note this is for individuals to request an accommodation as part of the application process and any other correspondence will not receive a response.

Lilly is proud to be an EEO Employer and does not discriminate on the basis of age, race, color, religion, gender identity, sex, gender expression, sexual orientation, genetic information, ancestry, national origin, protected veteran status, disability, or any other legally protected status.

Our employee resource groups (ERGs) offer strong support networks for their members and are open to all employees. Our current groups include: Africa, Middle East, Central Asia (AMECA), Black Employees at Lilly (View email address on click.appcast.io), Chinese Culture Network (CCN), EnAble, Evolve, Lilly Indian Network (LIN), Organization of Latinx at Lilly (OLA), Pride (LGBTQ+ Allies), Veterans Leadership Network (VLN) and Women’s Initiative for Leading at Lilly (WILL).

Actual compensation will depend on a candidate’s education, experience, skills, and geographic location. The anticipated wage for this position is

$163,500 - $297,000

Full-time equivalent employees also will be eligible for a company bonus (depending, in part, on company and individual performance). In addition, Lilly offers a comprehensive benefit program to eligible employees, including eligibility to participate in a company-sponsored 401(k); pension; vacation benefits; eligibility for medical, dental, vision and prescription drug benefits; flexible benefits (e.g., healthcare and/or dependent day care flexible spending accounts); life insurance and death benefits; certain time off and leave of absence benefits; and well-being benefits (e.g., employee assistance program, fitness benefits, and employee clubs and activities).

Lilly reserves the right to amend, modify, or terminate its compensation and benefit programs in its sole discretion and Lilly’s compensation practices and guidelines will apply regarding the details of any promotion or transfer of Lilly employees.

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