Principal Security Architect (Commercial Bank & Payments)

Principal Architect, Enterprise Security (Commercial Banking & Payments)

Citizens is seeking a strategic and experienced Principal Architect, Enterprise Security to support our Commercial Banking and Payments domains. This role is responsible for driving secure, scalable, and resilient architecture strategies across cloud, infrastructure, applications, data, and security platforms.

While aligned to the Security organization, this is not a traditional security engineering position. The successful candidate will leverage enterprise architecture principles and industry frameworks to guide technology decisions, influence architectural direction, and embed security throughout the technology ecosystem. This individual will partner closely with senior architects, engineering leaders, and business stakeholders to enable innovation while managing risk and supporting business objectives.

Work Arrangement

Remote work is not available for this position.

Candidates must be willing to commute to one of the following hub locations and work a hybrid schedule consisting of 4 days onsite and 1 day remote per week:

Phoenix, AZ

Johnston, RI

Westwood, MA

Marlton, NJ

Key Responsibilities

Define and evolve enterprise architecture strategies aligned to business objectives and cybersecurity goals.

Partner with line of business architects to ensure cohesive integration of business, application, data, technology, and security architecture domains.

Develop architecture standards, reference architectures, design patterns, and reusable frameworks that promote consistency and scalability across the enterprise.

Champion secure by design principles throughout the software development lifecycle.

Serve as a senior advisor, translating regulatory requirements, security standards, and risk considerations into actionable architectural guidance.

Collaborate with Infrastructure, Engineering, DevOps, Site Reliability Engineering (SRE), and Security leaders to embed architectural controls into platforms, CI/CD pipelines, and operational processes.

Lead architecture discussions supporting cloud transformation, infrastructure modernization, application development, and data initiatives.

Evaluate and guide adoption of emerging technologies, including cloud native platforms, identity frameworks, API security, secure data exchange, containerization, and automation solutions.

Drive alignment between enterprise architecture, cybersecurity, and business strategy.

Influence technology decisions across a highly matrixed organization through technical expertise, collaboration, and leadership.

Communicate architectural concepts, recommendations, and risk considerations to both technical and executive audiences.

Required Qualifications

Bachelor's degree in Software Engineering, Computer Science, Computer Engineering, or related discipline.

15+ years of experience in enterprise architecture roles with demonstrated leadership at the enterprise or divisional level.

Strong knowledge and practical application of enterprise architecture frameworks including TOGAF, SABSA, NIST, and related methodologies.

Deep experience with cloud platforms including AWS, Azure, or GCP.

Experience with DevOps practices, infrastructure automation, CI/CD pipelines, and modern software engineering approaches.

Strong understanding of modern application architectures including microservices, APIs, distributed systems, and container technologies.

Broad cybersecurity architecture experience including identity and access management, encryption, secure network design, threat modeling, and security controls.

Proven ability to bridge enterprise architecture, security architecture, application architecture, and business strategy.

Experience embedding security into digital transformation, modernization, customer experience, and operational efficiency initiatives.

Experience implementing shift left security practices and proactively incorporating security requirements into architectural design.

Ability to align security priorities with evolving business objectives and technology strategies.

Experience fostering a security minded culture that positions security as a business enabler while maintaining compliance and managing risk.

Ability to influence stakeholders and drive outcomes in a highly matrixed environment without direct authority.

Excellent written, verbal, and presentation skills with the ability to communicate effectively to technical and executive audiences.

Preferred Qualifications

Master's degree in Software Engineering, Computer Science, Engineering, Mathematics, or related discipline.

Industry certifications such as TOGAF, SABSA, CISSP, CCSP, AWS Solutions Architect, Azure Solutions Architect, or similar credentials.

Experience within financial services, banking, payments, fintech, or other highly regulated industries.

Pay Transparency

The salary range for this position is from $160,000 to $205,000 per year, plus an opportunity to earn an annual discretionary bonus. Actual pay is based on various factors including but not limited to, the budget, work location, relevant skills, and experience.

We offer competitive pay, comprehensive medical, dental, and vision coverage, retirement benefits, maternity and paternity leave, flexible work arrangements, education reimbursement, wellness programs, and more. Citizens’ paid time off policy exceeds the mandatory paid sick or paid time away policies of local and state jurisdictions in the United States. For an overview of our benefits, visit our Careers site.

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Equal Employment Opportunity

Citizens, its parent, subsidiaries, and related companies (Citizens) provide equal employment and advancement opportunities to all colleagues and applicants for employment without regard to age, ancestry, color, citizenship, physical or mental disability, perceived disability or history or record of a disability, ethnicity, gender, gender identity or expression, genetic information, genetic characteristic, marital or domestic partner status, victim of domestic violence, family status/parenthood, medical condition, military or veteran status, national origin, pregnancy/childbirth/lactation, colleague’s or a dependent’s reproductive health decision making, race, religion, sex, sexual orientation, or any other category protected by federal, state and/or local laws. At Citizens, we are committed to fostering an inclusive culture that enables all colleagues to bring their best selves to work every day and everyone is expected to be treated with respect and professionalism. Employment decisions are based solely on merit, qualifications, performance and capability.

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Background Check

Any offer of employment is conditioned upon the candidate successfully passing a background check, which may include initial credit, motor vehicle record, public record, prior employment verification, and criminal background checks. Results of the background check are individually reviewed based upon legal requirements imposed by our regulators and with consideration of the nature and gravity of the background history and the job offered. Any offer of employment will include further information.