DDN is seeking a highly experienced Sr. Staff Security Architect to lead the design and implementation of end-to-end security architecture across distributed storage platforms, including S3-compatible systems, POSIX-compliant file systems, and KV cache-based data services. This is an architecture role focused on working closely with engineering teams across the data path, control plane, and ecosystem/protocol domains to ensure security is deeply embedded across all layers of the platform. You will collaborate with protocol teams, storage engineers, and platform architects to define secure-by-design systems that support high-performance, multi-tenant, and AI-driven workloads. The ideal candidate brings deep expertise in distributed systems security, cryptography, identity frameworks, and storage architectures, with a strong ability to influence engineering design and guide implementation at scale.
Key Responsibilities- Lead the design and implementation of end-to-end security architecture for distributed storage platforms, including S3-compatible systems, POSIX-compliant file systems, and KV cache-based data services.
- Partner closely with Data Path engineering teams to ensure secure, high-performance data movement across storage tiers, including encryption, integrity validation, and secure I/O handling.
- Lead threat modeling, security reviews, and Secure Software Development Lifecycle (SSDLC) practices across the platform.
- Define identity and access management (IAM) integrating enterprise identity providers such as LDAP, Active Directory, OIDC, and Keycloak, supporting SSO, MFA, and federation.
- Architect fine-grained authorization models using RBAC and ABAC across tenants, datasets, and resources.
- Design multi-tenant isolation mechanisms across namespaces, policies, encryption boundaries, and resource quotas, enforcing least privilege and segregation of duties.
- Collaborate with Control Plane teams to define secure APIs, authentication and authorization workflows, policy enforcement, and tenant lifecycle management.
- Work with Protocol and Ecosystem teams to secure S3 and POSIX/NFS interfaces, including request signing, session management, and endpoint security.
- Define and enforce encryption strategies for data at rest and in transit, including tenant-specific keys and dataset-level encryption policies. .
- Drive observability and monitoring strategies to detect anomalous behavior, abnormal access patterns, and potential data exfiltration across the platform.
- Provide technical leadership and mentorship across cross-functional engineering teams, guiding secure design and implementation practices.
Required Qualifications- Bachelor's or Master's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related field.
- 12+ years of experience in security architecture, infrastructure security, or distributed systems.
- Proven experience designing security for large-scale distributed systems or storage platforms.
- Strong understanding of data path vs. control plane architectures and their security implications.
- Deep expertise in encryption technologies, key management systems, and cryptographic frameworks.
- Experience integrating with external KMS solutions using KMIP or similar protocols.
- Strong knowledge of identity and access management (IAM), including RBAC, ABAC, SSO, MFA, and federation.
- Experience working with enterprise identity providers such as LDAP, Active Directory, and OIDC.
- Familiarity with secure API design, TLS 1.3, mutual TLS, and request signing mechanisms (e.g., SigV4).
- Experience designing multi-tenant systems with strong isolation and policy enforcement.
- Knowledge of logging, auditing, and SIEM integration for security monitoring and compliance.
- Ability to collaborate effectively with protocol, storage, and platform engineering teams.
Preferred Skills- Experience working with S3, POSIX/NFS, or similar storage protocols from a security architecture perspective.
- Familiarity with KV cache systems, memory tiering, or AI/ML data infrastructure security considerations.
- Hands-on experience with BYOK models and tenant-scoped key management.
- Experience implementing ABAC using metadata, tags, and classification attributes.
- Background in zero trust architecture and distributed system security design.
- Experience with secure deletion techniques, including cryptographic erasure.
- Knowledge of compliance frameworks such as SOC 2, ISO 27001, NIST, or FedRAMP.
- Experience designing security for high-performance, low-latency distributed systems.
- Familiarity with anomaly detection, security analytics, and alerting systems.
What You'll Work On- Defining and driving security architecture across data path, control plane, and protocol layers of distributed storage systems
- Partnering with engineering teams to embed security into S3, POSIX, and KV cache data services
- Building scalable encryption, identity, and access control frameworks for multi-tenant environments
- Strengthening tenant isolation, auditability, and compliance across the platform
- Ensuring secure integration across ecosystem components and external services
- Leading cross-team security initiatives that influence system design, implementation, and long-term platform evolution
