Senior Enterprise Architect, CIAM

Company: Zip
Location: Campbell
Posted on: February 17, 2026

Job Description:

• Senior Enterprise Architect with deep expertise in Customer Identity & Access Management design and implementation. • Engineering leader who fosters collaboration, innovation, and operational excellence through strategic leadership and continuous improvement • Remote-first opportunity for US-based employees with the option to work in-person out of our Manhattan office Start your adventure with Zip Join Zip’s Enterprise Architecture organization and help shape how millions of customers securely register, authenticate, and interact with Zip’s products. We operate at a significant scale, balancing customer experience, security, fraud prevention, and regulatory obligations across a diverse and rapidly evolving product ecosystem. We are seeking an accomplished Senior Enterprise Architect to serve as the strategic authority for Customer Identity and Access Management at Zip. This is an architecture-first, consultative leadership role focused on defining vision, principles, and target-state architectures rather than day-to-day operational delivery. You will influence platform direction, guide modernization initiatives, and act as a trusted advisor to senior stakeholders while ensuring customer identity remains a foundational, secure, and scalable digital capability. Interesting problems you’ll get to solve CIAM Vision & Thought Leadership • Define and own Zip’s long-term CIAM strategy and architectural vision. • Establish customer identity as a foundational digital capability that supports growth, trust, and risk management. • Act as the internal subject matter expert on CIAM trends, patterns, and emerging technologies. • Champion modern, passwordless, and low-friction authentication approaches including passkeys, biometrics, device binding, and adaptive authentication. Architecture & Design Authority • Define target-state CIAM architectures covering registration, authentication, authorization, session management, consent, and recovery. • Develop and maintain CIAM reference architectures, design principles, and decision frameworks. • Provide architectural guidance and design review for customer-facing identity implementations. • Ensure CIAM designs integrate cleanly with fraud, risk, data, and analytics capabilities for adaptive and contextual trust decisions. Consultative Partnership • Serve as a trusted advisor to Product, Engineering, Design, and Platform teams on customer identity design decisions. • Influence product and platform roadmaps to ensure identity experiences are consistent, secure, and scalable. • Partner with Security to align CIAM designs with enterprise risk posture, regulatory expectations, and control requirements. • Collaborate with Fraud and Risk teams to incorporate behavioral, device, and contextual signals into authentication strategies. Governance & Alignment • Contribute to and help shape identity governance forums spanning Security, Enterprise Architecture, Product, Risk, and Engineering. • Define shared CIAM standards, risk thresholds, and architectural guardrails. • Ensure alignment between customer identity patterns and broader enterprise identity principles. • Provide guidance on ownership boundaries between CIAM platforms and workforce IAM systems. Strategy, Maturity & Advisory • Define CIAM maturity models and modernization roadmaps. • Advise leadership on strategic investments in CIAM platforms, authentication technologies, and identity infrastructure. • Monitor regulatory, privacy, and industry developments impacting customer identity and authentication. • Help leadership evaluate trade-offs between security, user experience, fraud prevention, and operational complexity. What you’ll bring to the team Educational Background: A bachelors degree in Computer Science or Software Engineering. A graduate degree is preferred. • Technical Leadership: Demonstrated ability to lead technical initiatives, guide teams, and inspire confidence. Proven track record of successfully leading large-scale CIAM projects with a focus on performance, scalability, and reliability. • Prior Experience and Expertise: 10 years of experience in identity, security, and enterprise architecture, with deep expertise in Customer Identity and Access Management (CIAM) for large-scale, customer-facing platforms, including OAuth 2.0, OpenID Connect, and SAML, and experience leading CIAM strategy, architecture, and modernization initiatives leveraging passkeys, biometrics, device trust, and adaptive MFA. • Mentorship: Experience mentoring and guiding engineering teams. Strong ability to foster a collaborative and high-performing engineering culture through knowledge sharing, technical mentorship, and cross-functional partnership. • Cross-Functional Collaboration: Exceptional communication and stakeholder management skills, with the ability to influence and drive alignment across engineering, product, and security teams on complex technical projects. • AI: Experience driving adoption of AI-based development tools, and a strong understanding of their potential and limitations. • TOGAF certification, prior architecture experience and experience in fintech are attributes of your profile that can set you apart from other candidates. What you’ll get in return Zip is a place where you’ll get out what you put in. The newness of our sector means we need to move at pace and embrace change, and our promise to you when you join the team is that you’ll feel empowered and trusted to make big things happen quickly. We want you to feel welcome and as though you have the support to be yourself, and care for yourself at work. Because it’s important to us that you make the most of the opportunities you’ll get to grow your skills and your career, and be surrounded by smart, friendly people and leaders that have your back. We think these are just some of the best things about being a Zipster. We will also offer you: • Flexible working culture • Incentive programs • Unlimited PTO • Generous paid parental leave • Leading family support policies • Company-sponsored 401k match • Learning and wellness subscription stipend • Beautiful Union Square office with a casual dress code • Industry-leading, employer-sponsored insurance for you and your dependents, with several 100% Zip-covered choices available The annual base Pay Range for this position is $190,000 - $200,000. This range reflects our US national compensation (USN). Additional premium percentages may apply based on our tiered premium strategy. Subject to those same considerations, the total compensation package for this position may also include other elements, including a bonus and/or equity awards, in addition to a full range of medical, financial, and/or other benefits. If hired, employees will be in an at-will position and the Company reserves the right to modify base salary (as well as any other discretionary payment or compensation or benefit program) at any time, including for reasons related to individual performance, Company or individual department/team performance, and market factors.

Keywords: Zip, Carmichael , Senior Enterprise Architect, CIAM, IT / Software / Systems , Campbell, California