Expert Associate Partner, Architecture (Cybersecurity)

Applications must be submitted received no later than 30 August 2026.

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Who You'll Work With

You will join the Architect experts within the Enterprise Technology team, part of Bain’s digital capabilities practice.

This is a multidisciplinary group that helps clients modernise their security strategy, architecture, and programmes.

The work centres on aligning cybersecurity with business goals, and in practice that means designing enterprise-wide security architectures, shaping operating models, managing cyber risk, and embedding security into digital and cloud transformations.

WHERE YOU’LL FIT WITHIN THE TEAM

As an Expert Associate Partner, Architecture (Cybersecurity), you will be a senior security architect within the practice, leading architecture engagements for our largest clients.

The role calls for deep technical security expertise, hands-on client advisory experience, and the ability to build and articulate a credible cybersecurity point of view.

What You'll Do

• Own cybersecurity architecture workstreams within large client transformation programmes.
• Design and deliver security architectures across cloud, hybrid, OT, and legacy environments.
• Work directly with CISO, CIO, and programme sponsors to shape security strategy and earn their confidence as a technical peer.
• Sit on the project leadership team and represent security across business and technology workstreams.
• Manage and direct teams of architects and consultants day-to-day.
• Produce as-is/to-be security architecture documentation, risk assessments, and migration artefacts.
• Identify client opportunities, develop security-focused points of view, and support account expansion.
• Understand what clients are wrestling with, technically and commercially, so that architectural recommendations land in context.
• Run multi-million security transformation programmes independently, from scoping through to delivery.
• Coach and develop more junior architects and consultants on the team.
• Stay current on the vendor landscape and bring that knowledge back to shape Bain's security offerings.
• Review security architectures and vendor proposals on behalf of clients, stress-testing assumptions and providing an independent view

About You

• 15+ years in cybersecurity, with time spent in both hands-on technical roles and broader strategic ones.
• T- or U-shaped: genuine depth in at least one domain (cloud security, IAM, SOC, or similar) and enough breadth to hold a conversation across the full landscape.
• Experienced in designing and delivering security architecture inside large, complex organisations, not just advising on it.
• Comfortable running client workshops, presenting to boards, and writing for executive audiences.
• Able to discuss security strategy directly with a CIO or CISO, including operating model, risk appetite, and programme design, not just technical architecture.
• Experience outside pure architecture: operating model design, capability building, cyber programme definition, or security governance.
• Works well in ambiguous situations and can bring structure to a client problem that has none.
• Familiar with the major frameworks (NIST CSF, ISO 27001, SABSA, MITRE ATT&CK, NIS2) and able to apply them selectively rather than wholesale.
• Cloud platform experience across at least two of Azure, AWS, and GCP, including hybrid architectures.
• Able to translate a technical vulnerability into a financial or operational risk statement that a CFO or board would act on.
• Experienced in scoping and structuring security engagements, including managing scope, stakeholders, and delivery risk.
• Communicates clearly with both technical architects and non-technical executives, adjusting without losing accuracy.
• Threat modelling experience using structured methods such as STRIDE, applied to complex hybrid ecosystems before deployment.
• Experience working with legacy technical debt in practice: modernising authentication protocols, managing PKI lifecycles, and retrofitting security controls into environments not originally designed with security in mind.
• Practical knowledge across some combination of: security governance and policy; cyber risk assessment; enterprise security programme design; and secure SDLC.
• Working knowledge of at least two cybersecurity frameworks: NIST CSF, NIST SP 800-53, ISO/IEC 27000 series, C2M2, or Cloud Security Alliance CCM.
• Familiarity with AI platform security, cloud and data security risks, and third-party/supply chain risk.
• Hands-on or advisory experience across IAM/PAM, vulnerability management, incident response, SIEM, and business continuity.
• Cloud landing zone design and segmentation: able to limit blast radius from a security incident through architecture choices, not just tooling.
• Data security: experience with DLP, data classification, and cryptographic controls across hybrid environments.
• Logging and observability: clear understanding of what good telemetry looks like from a security operations perspective, and able to design architectures to produce it.
• Able to speak to AI and automation in a security context, including where Gen AI introduces new risk and how to address it architecturally.
• Nice To Have
• Prior consulting experience in an architecture leadership role.
• Experience building security frameworks or reference architectures that a team can reuse.
• Experience writing proposals, leading pitches, or contributing to winning new security work.
• Experience managing or mentoring junior cyber staff in a professional services environment.
• Dev Sec Ops experience: implementing security gates (SAST/DAST) into CI/CD pipelines.
• Infrastructure as Code (Terraform, Bicep) and scripting (Power Shell, Python) for security automation.
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