[Hiring] Information Security Architect @Unit4

Role Description

At Unit4, we’re in Business for People. The Global Security organisation protects our people, platforms, products, and customers by driving secure design, resilience, and maturity across the entire business. As we strengthen our architecture capability across CISO, IT, and CloudOps, we are seeking an experienced Security Architect to partner across the enterprise and help shape Unit4’s future‑state security landscape.

This role sits within the CISO Security Team but works with Product/Engineering, Enterprise Architecture and CloudOps. You will play a pivotal role in designing, governing, and embedding secure architectural principles across Unit4’s technology estate.

The Security Architect will develop, and mature Unit4’s enterprise security architecture across cloud, infrastructure, identity, SaaS, and endpoint domains. You will collaborate with senior stakeholders, guide teams, and translate business strategy and risk into secure, scalable, and pragmatic designs.

This is a hands‑on architectural role for someone who thrives in complex environments, can operate strategically and tactically, and who brings expertise across security architecture, cloud, and modern enterprise platforms.

Key Responsibilities

• Enterprise Security Architecture
  • Lead the security target state architecture and multi-year roadmap, aligning risk reduction and business outcomes; socialize tradeoffs with leadership.
  • Lead enterprise architecture assessments across multiple environments, including:
    • Cloud (Azure) security and network infrastructure, including Kubernetes
    • Identity & access management (zero trust, conditional access, PAM/PIM)
    • CI/CD pipelines and secure software development
    • AI / LLM
  • Partner closely with Cloud Ops and Product Architecture to ensure security is designed into enterprise platforms and product roadmaps.
  • Develop security reference architectures, and patterns aligned to Unit4’s security vision.
  • Design and implementation of layered enterprise security architectures, ensuring defence-in-depth and resilience across digital estates.
  • Act as an architectural authority in engagements interdepartmentally, providing well reasoned viewpoints on security principles, technologies, and patterns.
  • Ensure architectural decisions incorporate regulatory, customer, and audit requirements and are evidenced through pattern adoption and architecture reviews.
  • Partner closely with Product/Engineering, Enterprise Architecture and CloudOps to embed security controls, influence technology decisions, and ensure alignment to security strategy.
  • Engage with senior stakeholders to shape cyber direction and ensure architectural consistency across teams.
• Cloud & Infrastructure Security
  • Secure architecture for multi‑cloud environments (Azure primary; awareness of AWS/GCP) across networking, compute, data, containers, and serverless.
  • Collaborate on the security design, engineering, and implementation of solutions within the Microsoft 365 (M365) and Entra ID ecosystems.
  • Consult on Microsoft security tooling including Microsoft Defender XDR, Defender for Cloud, Azure Policy, Endpoint management, Azure Network Security, and Conditional Access.
  • Evaluate new cloud services, ensuring risks are identified and mitigated before adoption.
• Cloud Operations and Product
  • Collaborate on the security design for workloads deployed on cloud environments (Microsoft Azure preferred) (IaaS, PaaS, and Serverless), ensuring alignment with corporate security policy and regulatory requirements.
  • Develop secure reference architectures for Azure cloud services, covering:
    • Container platforms including AKS: cluster governance and baseline policies, workload identity, secrets management, runtime threat detection, tenancy/isolation and scale/cost guardrails.
    • Compute: VMs, scale sets, serverless workloads.
    • Storage & Data Services: Storage Accounts, Azure SQL, managed databases, key management, data loss prevention.
  • Mature security by design in Product, including compliance checks in pipeline, and architecture review and assurance for deviations from standards.
  • Contribute security nonfunctional requirements, reference patterns, and threat models to Product roadmaps; review high‑impact designs; ensure product changes align with enterprise guardrails. (Scope is collaborative and advisory, not ownership of Product delivery backlogs.)
• Thought Leadership & Capability Building
  • Contribute to enterprise blueprints, playbooks, and whitepapers to mature the architectural practice.
  • Support the ongoing development of Unit4’s secure culture and help uplift security knowledge across technical teams.
  • Serve as a trusted advisor, articulating complex security concepts and risks to both technical and non‑technical audiences.

Qualifications

• 7–10+ years’ experience in IT or cybersecurity, with at least 3 years in a dedicated security architecture role.
• Relevant industry certifications (e.g., CISSP, Microsoft Certified: Cyber security Architect Expert (SC-100), Azure Security Engineer (AZ-500)).
• Proven experience designing large‑scale, secure enterprise solutions in complex organisations.
• Deep technical expertise across cloud (Azure required), identity, network, endpoint, SaaS, and modern enterprise architectures.
• Strong hands‑on knowledge of Microsoft security technologies (Defender XDR, Defender for Cloud, Conditional Access, Entra ID governance, PIM, etc.).
• Demonstrated experience delivering Zero Trust concepts in production environments.
• Strong understanding of DevSecOps principles and automation tooling.
• Ability to clearly articulate security risks and solutions to both engineering teams and executive stakeholders.

Requirements

• Knowledge of major frameworks (NIST, ISO27001, SOC reporting, CIS, MITRE ATT&CK, CSA CCM).
• Experience with IaC tools (Terraform, Bicep) and scripting languages (PowerShell, Python).
• Experience designing scalable architectures for hybrid or multi‑cloud environments.
• Prior experience in large enterprises, SaaS providers, or regulated sectors.

Soft Skills

• Strong consulting-style capability: facilitation, stakeholder engagement, and outcome‑based delivery.
• Comfortable operating in ambiguous environments and simplifying complexity.
• Ability to operate independently, managing multiple projects and driving technical decisions.
• Strategic thinker able to connect long‑term goals with short‑term action.
• Collaborative and credible across cross‑functional teams.
• Passionate about security, innovation, and helping the organisation grow securely.

Benefits

• A culture built on trust and accountability - giving you the freedom and autonomy to be successful and make an impact.
• Balance - with our Flexible Leave Paid Time Off policy, remote working opportunities, Global Wellbeing Days, and other great benefits.
• Growth opportunities - we provide the tools and guidance required so that you can focus on what really matters to you and so, ultimately, you can achieve your best work.
• Talented colleagues, role models and mentors - work, learn and be inspired by some of the best talent in the software industry.
• A commitment to sustainability - with initiatives such as our Environmental, Social, and Governance strategy and Act4Good programme.
• A safe and inclusive working environment – supported by our Employee Resource Groups, which are open to all.