Senior Enterprise Architect - Security

Pay: $133k-$200k plus a 10% annual bonus

Relocation: $25k - paid in the first month's paycheck

Location: Columbus preferred, but Chicago (Merrillville, IN) or a PA location is also possible. If they are local, they will come in two to three days a week. About half remote and half onsite.

Start ASAP.

Interview process: a 30-minute screen, one to two rounds with the other architects and James and then they make a hiring decision. They brought candidates onsite so they can see their potential workspace and to check out the environment.

Senior Enterprise Architect - Security

locations

Columbus OH - Arena District

Canonsburg-SPT PA-Hqtr

Merrillville IN-NIPSCO HDQ

Merrillville IN-EnergyUSA

time type

Full time

Reporting to the Head of Architecture, the Senior Enterprise Architect works closely with the Application Development, Infrastructure, Security, Data & Analytics, and PMO teams to provide overall architecture leadership across NiSource. The Senior Enterprise Architect must possess deep technology experiences within Security to build out the architecture vision, strategy, and capability roadmap. The ideal candidate will have extensive experience envisioning and translating overall architecture with business needs via transformation roadmaps, establish target architecture and standards for the organization, building consensus, and provide guidance in the selling and execution within solution development processes of options and reuse points.

Essential Functions

Provides senior level expertise on overall direction, guidance, definition, decisions, and priorities regarding the enterprise’s overall architecture to effectively support the organization business strategy.

Interact with business leaders, IT leaders, vendors and industry experts to translate business requirements, understand options to capabilities, and create architecture blueprints and high-level solution designs for the most complex architectural components of a program.

Strategy – Interfaces across several business areas, acting as a visionary to proactively assist in defining direction for future projects. Help business leaders and their teams think through the technology, business and operational implications of their technology investment decisions.

Execution – Reviews, advises, and designs standard software and hardware builds, system options, risks, costs versus benefits, and impact on the enterprise business process and goals. Be the architecture thought leader and trusted go-to partner for Product and Engineering leadership across the organization, recommending innovative solutions to improve live and new system architectures.

Operations – Facilitates the establishment and implementation of standards and reference material that guides the design of technology solutions. Lead architectural collaboration and governing processes including Architecture Review Boards, Solution Architecture reviews, exception management, and related processes.

Innovation - Responsible for researching, analyzing, designing, proposing, and delivering solutions that are appropriate for the business and technologies strategies. Tracks industry trends and maintains knowledge of new technologies to better serve the enterprise’s architecture needs.

Required Qualifications For Position

Bachelor's Degree in related field or equivalent work experience

10+ years of relevant enterprise-wide architecture, including deep understanding of various aspects of Security capabilities listed: Vulnerability Management, Network Security, Identity Management, Firewall Management, End Point Protection, Risk Management, Incident Response, Penetration Testing, Security Information and Event Management (SIEM), Security Orchestration, Automation, and Response (SOAR), Data Loss Prevention, IPS/IDS, Cloud Services, IoT / OT Security, Data Encryption (In Motion and at Rest), Automation (DevSecOps)

Experience within security architecture design, risk and asset management, policy and compliance, system evaluation and integration, incident response and monitoring.

Stay updated on emerging threats, hacker methodologies, and security standards.

Experience in directing and mentoring other architects in the team and across the organization.

Expertise in security frameworks such as NIST, ISO 27001, etc.

Professional certifications like CISSP, CISM are highly valued

Experience with on-premise solutions and cloud platforms on Azure, AWS.

Deep knowledge of API-first design patterns

Technology skills across multiple IT domains (e.g. application, data, infrastructure, security)

Strong consultative skills at a cross-functional level

Strong skills in Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and LeanIX

Knowledge of TOGAF, ITIL, and other architecture / business process frameworks

Experience in application development, systems management, and/or project management is a plus

Leadership competencies in: - Organizing and Setting Priorities - Managing and Measuring Work - Peer Relationships - Continuous Improvement - Motivating Others - Self-motivated; capable of managing multiple tasks

Candidate Identification Guide

Role Overview / Strategic Context

This is a high-impact, enterprise-wide architecture role within a newly structured technology organization.

Organizational Setup

Team built around 8 architecture roles across:

Business / Application

Data Analytics / AI

DevOps

Cloud / Infrastructure

Network

Security

Each role is expected to complement one another as part of a broader enterprise strategy.

Security Architect Focus

80% aligned to Security organization

20% cross-functional influence across networking, SAP, customer, and corporate practices

Enterprise-level role with broad visibility—not siloed inside IT

1. Technical Credibility (“Street Cred”)

They need someone who can:

Speak deeply and confidently with technical teams

Push back intelligently against external partners/consultants

Understand architecture at a systems level—not just surface knowledge

Translation:

Candidates must be respected by engineers and capable of challenging vendors or strategy recommendations.

2. Strategic + Hands-On Balance

This is not a pure strategy / PowerPoint role.

Expected balance:

2/3 architecture & strategic planning

1/3 operational involvement / project engagement / mentoring

They want someone willing to:

Get into projects

Understand operational realities

Help build repeatable practices

Translation:

Avoid candidates who are overly theoretical or detached from execution.

3. Collaboration & Flexibility

Since the function is being built from scratch, success depends on:

Cross-team partnership

Adaptability

Comfort working in ambiguity

This person must fit into a broader architecture ecosystem and support multiple stakeholders.

4. Forward Thinking / Innovation

Many existing teams are strong in operations, but weaker in future-state thinking.

The ideal hire should:

Think beyond immediate fixes

Build long-term strategy

Help modernize architecture and security capabilities

5. Resilience / Persistence

There will be resistance from legacy teams and organizational silos.

The hiring manager specifically emphasized:

Ability to deal with “brick walls”

Hardheadedness

Persistence in driving change

Translation:

This person must be politically savvy and durable under pressure.

Priority Domains

Cloud security

Identity & access management

Vulnerability management

Intrusion detection

Policies / procedures

Third-party risk

Endpoint / network fundamentals

Security operations alignment

Framework Alignment

Strong focus on improving NIST maturity score

Candidate should understand enterprise security frameworks at a macro level

OT / Utility Exposure = Nice-to-Have

Operational Technology / ICS / utility background is beneficial but not mandatory.

What matters more

Network + endpoint security fundamentals

Ability to extend architecture into OT-adjacent environments

Legacy + Modernization Experience Matters

Environment includes:

Significant legacy systems

5 major transformations running concurrently:

Field / Asset

Customer

Corporate

Security

Data Analytics

Ideal candidate should understand:

Modernization journeys

Tool optimization

Security enablement across transformations

Avoid Candidates Who Are:

Pure Consultants Without Ownership

If they’ve only repeated the same consulting tasks without measurable impact, they may not fit.

Candidates who only produce frameworks/slides without operational engagement are a mismatch.

This role requires breadth, not narrow expertise in one domain.

This role is equivalent in stature to a Principal Engineer

High influence, high visibility, enterprise scope

Best Discovery Question with candidates

“Where have you made an impact?”

Probe across four pillars:

Strategic direction

Project delivery

Operational improvement

Innovation

Strong candidates should quickly provide examples across multiple pillars.

Additional Screening Questions

Can they:

Influence executives?

Mentor teams?

Challenge external vendors?

Navigate resistance?

Balance strategy with execution?

Selling Points to Candidates:

Greenfield Opportunity

Team is being built from scratch

Chance to shape architecture function

Enterprise Visibility

Broad exposure across business units

Executive interaction

Transformation Environment

Security embedded in major modernization initiatives

Growth Potential

Opportunity to become a recognized enterprise leader

A winning candidate will be:

Technically respected + strategically capable + operationally grounded + collaborative + persistent

They should bring:

Enterprise architecture mindset

Security breadth

Transformation experience

Executive communication skills

Ability to drive change in complex environments

Target profiles such as:

Senior Security Architects

Principal Security Engineers

Enterprise Security Architects

Security Transformation Leaders

Technical leaders in regulated / infrastructure-heavy industries

Industries to prioritize

Utilities

Energy

Manufacturing

Critical infrastructure

Large enterprise environment