Director, Security Architecture

Location: Toronto, Ontario

You are as unique as your background, experience and point of view. Here, you’ll be encouraged, empowered and challenged to be your best self. You'll work with dynamic colleagues - experts in their fields - who are eager to share their knowledge with you. Your leaders will inspire and help you reach your potential and soar to new heights. Every day, you'll have new and exciting opportunities to make life brighter for our Clients - who are at the heart of everything we do.

At Sun Life, we're driven by our Purpose: helping our Clients achieve lifetime financial security and live healthier lives. Our values shape how we work: caring, authentic, bold, inspiring, and impactful.

When you join Sun Life, you'll work with passionate colleagues and empowering leaders who support your growth and celebrate your contributions, so you can make a meaningful difference in our Clients' lives.

Discover how you can make a difference in the lives of individuals, families and communities around the world.

Role Summary

You will represent the Security Architecture team across our enterprise architecture and technology community, shaping how security is designed into everything we build including the AI systems now reaching production.

This is a senior, influence-led role. You will prioritise the strategic concepts and capability sets that matter most, align security to the architecture process and the NIST framework, and advance technology modernisation and defense-in-depth across multiple clouds and on Prem.

You will set direction for a substantial security technology stack including: cloud security posture and workload protection, endpoint detection and response, SIEM, secrets and privileged access management, data protection, application security and perimeter defense and make strategic decisions on the future of the technology stack

What will you do?

Partner with global domain architects to review enterprise architecture patterns and guardrails, ensuring security is designed in rather than retrofitted.

Evaluate and recommend emerging technologies, providing technical and thought leadership through proofs of concept and business cases that demonstrate value.

Represent security technology and capability strategy at senior executive forums and enterprise technology review boards.

Provide architecture and design expertise on enterprise projects and security initiatives, including cross-domain functions, and certify domains in line with architecture governance.

Lead the strategic evolution of security capabilities with a zero-trust-first approach, working alongside delivery teams.

Define the security architecture for AI adoption covering AI and agentic systems, the data that feeds them, and the platforms that host them. This includes model and agent governance, AI security posture management, data-classification controls for training and inference, guardrails against prompt injection and model misuse, and secure-by-design patterns for AI-enabled products.

Set a modernised approach to security tooling, services and capability sets, focused on technical feasibility across emerging technologies, controls and functions.

Drive multi-cloud consistency, ensuring controls, telemetry and posture management extend uniformly across all cloud providers rather than clustering around the best-covered one.

What will you need to succeed?

Experience

Minimum 7–10 years in information security architecture, engineering and design.

Proven ability to navigate complex organisations across the security, network, infrastructure and global architecture stack.

Proven experience migrating and upgrading core security technologies as part of an evolving security and infrastructure stack, including API security, web filtering, cloud security, email security and endpoint security.

Experience managing third-party security service providers in delivering security services.

Technical depth

Strong knowledge of core security domains: endpoint, cloud, infrastructure, perimeter and data protection.

Multi-cloud security architecture across at least two major providers, with an appreciation of how native controls and third-party platforms differ in coverage.

Working knowledge of the modern security toolset CNAPP/CSPM, EDR/XDR, SIEM, secrets management, privileged access management, SSE/CASB, WAF and perimeter protection, database activity monitoring, and SAST/SCA/DAST in the pipeline.

AI security: familiarity with AI and LLM threat models (such as the OWASP Top 10 for LLM Applications), AI governance frameworks (such as the NIST AI Risk Management Framework), AI security posture management, model and agent identity, and the data-security implications of AI adoption.

Pragmatic understanding of security problems as a mix of technology and process, with the ability to pursue solutions at multiple levels throughout the organisation.

Leadership and communication

Expert presentation and communication skills, written and verbal.

People leadership experience preferred, including the ability to engage, mentor, coach and develop.

Extensive knowledge of information security principles, best practices and industry standards.

Self-starter, strategic thinker, negotiator and consensus builder.

Education

University degree/college diploma in related discipline(s) or equivalent co-op work experience,

Professional designation in IT security (such as CISM, CISSP, CISA) preferred

What's in it for you?

A competitive salary and bonus program, based on market scale

A flexible group insurance program starting on your first day of work to meet your needs and those of your family.

Time off that allows you to focus on the moments that matter most. 20 vacation days per year.

Our Share Ownership Program gives you the opportunity to invest in Sun Life while benefiting from employer matching contributions.

A warm, supportive, and inclusive culture.

The Base Pay range is for the primary location for which the job is posted. It may vary depending on the work location of the successful candidate or other factors. In addition to Base Pay, eligible Sun Life employees participate in various incentive plans, payment under which is discretionary and subject to individual and company performance. Certain sales focused roles have sales incentive plans based on individual or group sales results.

Diversity and inclusion have always been at the core of our values at Sun Life. A diverse workforce with wide perspectives and creative ideas benefits our Clients, the communities where we operate and all of us as colleagues. We welcome applications from qualified individuals from all backgrounds.

Persons with disabilities who need accommodation in the application process, or those needing job postings in an alternative format, may e-mail a request to [email protected].

We are proud to be a hybrid organization that offers our employees the choice and flexibility to work from both the office and virtually based on the needs of the business, our Clients and you.

We may use artificial intelligence to support candidate sourcing, screening, interview scheduling.

We thank all applicants for showing an interest in this position. Only those selected for an interview will be contacted.

Salary Range

135,000/135 000 - 195,000/195 000

Job Category

IT - Application Development

Posting End Date

17/11/2026

Additional Locations: Sun Life Toronto Atria, Sun Life Waterloo King