Staff Security Engineer

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