Research Computing Security Architect

The University of Utah’s Center for High Performance Computing (CHPC) is seeking a highly skilled Research Computing Security Architect to lead the technical vision, strategic design, and overarching security architecture for its high-performance computing (HPC) environments. This role is critical to enabling research by designing resilient, scalable systems that align with NIST SP 800-171 Revision 3 and other federal cybersecurity standards. Reporting to the head of the Security and Compliance (S&C) team, the Architect will serve as CHPC’s security architecture lead, working closely with other S&C team members, other CHPC teams who are responsible for systems implementation and operations, and with other institutional security and compliance teams to bridge the gap between technical reality and institutional governance.

Learn more about the great benefits of working for University of Utah: benefits.utah.edu

The department may choose to hire at any of the below job levels and associated pay rates based on their business need and budget.

Responsibilities Architecture & Technical Strategy

• Develop and own the comprehensive security architecture and technical roadmap for HPC systems supporting regulated research.
• Define reusable security patterns for Linux-based HPC clusters, workload schedulers, containers, shared storage, high-speed networks, data-transfer services, virtualization, cloud resources, and interactive research-access services to satisfy NIST SP 800-171 Rev. 3, CMMC, and other federal cybersecurity standards.
• Collaborate with CHPC monitoring specialists and infrastructure teams to define logging, telemetry, detection, logging, detection, and incident response capabilities, including required data sources, integrations, retention, alerting, and validation criteria.
• Lead architectural threat modeling exercises, evaluating complex system designs against potential attack vectors to ensure security is embedded by design prior to deployment.

Cross-Team Leadership & Communication

• Ability to lead technical design reviews and influence cross-functional teams without direct supervisory authority.
• Serve as a liaison by communicating complex architectural risks, tradeoffs, dependencies, and recommendations to technical and nontechnical audiences.
• Evaluate and select emerging security tools, platforms, and secure data transfer protocols to continuously modernize the HPC security posture.

Security Architecture Assurance & Compliance Partnership

• Partner with the internal Governance, Risk, and Compliance (GRC) team and compliance analysts to map regulatory and contractual requirements to technical architecture, implementation requirements, and validation criteria.
• Develop and maintain architecture diagrams, technical specifications, trust-boundary documentation, data-flow models, and security design records that support institutional compliance efforts.
• Validate that deployed environments align with approved security designs and document material deviations, compensating controls, and residual risks.
• Serve as the technical Subject Matter Expert (SME) during assessments while compliance personnel retain responsibility for SSP management, evidence coordination, audit administration, and POA&M tracking.
• Lead architectural threat modeling exercises, evaluating complex system designs against potential attack vectors to ensure security is embedded by design prior to deployment.

Cross-Team Leadership & Communication

• Ability to lead technical design reviews and influence cross-functional teams without direct supervisory authority.
• Serve as a liaison by communicating complex architectural risks, tradeoffs, dependencies, and recommendations to technical and nontechnical audiences.
• Evaluate and select emerging security tools, platforms, and secure data transfer protocols to continuously modernize the HPC security posture.

Security Architecture Assurance & Compliance Partnership

• Partner with the internal Governance, Risk, and Compliance (GRC) team and compliance analysts to map regulatory and contractual requirements to technical architecture, implementation requirements, and validation criteria.
• Develop and maintain architecture diagrams, technical specifications, trust-boundary documentation, data-flow models, and security design records that support institutional compliance efforts.
• Validate that deployed environments align with approved security designs and document material deviations, compensating controls, and residual risks.
• Serve as the technical Subject Matter Expert (SME) during assessments while compliance personnel retain responsibility for SSP management, evidence coordination, audit administration, and POA&M tracking.

EQUIVALENCY STATEMENT: 1 year of higher education can be substituted for 1 year of directly related work experience (Example: bachelor’s degree = 4 years of directly related work experience). Department may hire employee at one of the following job levels: Information Security Architect, III: Requires a bachelor’s (or equivalency) + 6 years or a master’s (or equivalency) + 4 years of directly related work experience.

Information Security Architect, IV: Requires a bachelor’s (or equivalency) + 8 years or a master’s (or equivalency) + 6 years of directly related work experience. Information Security Architect, V: Requires a bachelor’s (or equivalency) + 10 years or a master’s (or equivalency) + 8 years of directly related work experience.

• Proven ability to translate federal cybersecurity standards (such as NIST SP 800-171 Rev. 3 and CMMC) into architectural blueprints and control patterns.
• Deep understanding of Linux-based operating systems, distributed computing, virtualization platforms, and HPC-oriented secure container orchestration (e.g., Kubernetes, Docker).
• Demonstrated experience evaluating, selecting, and designing large-scale security capabilities, including centralized logging and SIEM, vulnerability and configuration management, network security, and host-based monitoring or EDR where technically appropriate.
• Strong understanding of infrastructure-as-code (IaC) and automation frameworks to guide engineering deployment.

Preferences

• Master’s degree in Computer Science, Information Security, Cybersecurity, Computer Engineering, or a related technical field.
• Active professional architecture certifications (e.g., CISSP-ISSAP, GDSA, CompTIA SecurityX, or vendor-specific enterprise architecture credentials).
• Prior experience designing security architectures for high-performance computing (HPC) environments or high-throughput research networks.
• Concrete experience operating within higher education, government, or defense research environments requiring strict data classification, identity, segmentation, least privilege, device or workload trust, and continuous validation.

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