Senior Architect (Cyberspace)

Senior Architect (Cyberspace)-251070 

Primary Location

 United States of America-Norfolk

NATO Body

 Headquarters Supreme Allied Commander Transformation (HQ SACT)

Schedule

 Full-time

Application Deadline

 28-Jul-2025, 9:59:00 PM

Salary (Pay Basis)

 : 10,350.80US Dollar (USD) MonthlyGrade NATO Grade G17 

Description

:  

Post Context

ACT contributes to preserving the peace, security and territorial integrity of Alliance member states by leading, at Strategic Command level, Warfare Development required to enhance NATO’s posture, military structures, forces, capabilities and doctrines.

The Capability Development Directorate (CAPDEV) comprises two Divisions—Requirements and Capabilities. The Directorate supports SACT in his Capabilities Requirement Authority (CRA) role. It is responsible for a holistic through lifecycle Capability Development approach that infuses innovation and transformative efforts that are an integral part of the Warfare Development. This includes responsibilities for elicitation, development, capture and collection, quality review, traceability and visibility of capability requirements.

The Capabilities Division coordinates the development of capabilities from capability planning through acceptance and then disposal with the management entities, NATO Headquarters staff and the NATO Governance Structure. This entails synchronizing horizontally across capabilities to achieve coherent efforts and outcomes.

The Cyberspace Branch provides scientific, technical and operational expertise for the development and continuous improvement of modern and agile Cyberspace capabilities including Cyber Defence and enabling cryptographic infrastructure. The Branch provides services and products through a competency-aligned structure to support appropriate product, programme coordination across DOTMLPFI lines of development throughout the lifecycle. The Branch supports cyber concepts development, capability requirements elicitation, architectures (including cryptographic reference and target architectures) and federated interoperability. This includes leveraging applied science, technology, operations research and horizon scanning. The Branch leads the development of Capability Programme Plans (CPPs)  and ensures delivery of programme outcomes by assessing throughout the lifecycle the CSSPR against agreed tolerances. The Branch leads the acceptance testing and documentation of assigned capabilities. The Branch analyses emerging technologies with stakeholders. It ensures military and technical coherence and persistent interoperability.

Within the Cyber Branch the incumbent's main responsibility is to collate, generate, manage, update and improve capability architectures.

Principal Duties: 

• Conduct a permanent critical analysis and review of existing and under-development cyberspace architectural products in tandem with related technical context such as requirements, system descriptions, concepts, etc. in order to gain a big picture perspective of Cyberspace capabilities across multiple projects.
• Liaise with ACT Technical Director (TD), Programme Directors (PDs) and Subject Matter experts (SMEs) in ACT, NCIA and other organizations to understand and describe NATO Cyberspace environment and analyse upcoming cyberspace requirements to develop new architectural products or augment existing ones.
• Develop NATO Architecture Framework (NAF) views, mainly using NAFv4 methodology.
• Coordinate and align the capability architectures with NATO HQ Office of CIO enterprise architectural views and products.
• Support the TD and the PDs in adopting and further customize architecture products in support of development of other products, including but not limited to capability breakdowns, capability descriptions and capability project plans.
• Engage with, and coordinate, relevant Communities of Interest (NATO organizations, nations, industry, and academia) for input to architectural development process.
• Prepare relevant briefing materials, as required, and deliver presentations.

Essential Qualifications / Experience:

• University Degree  in information technology, information systems engineering, business administration, quality engineering, information security, computer science or related discipline  and 4 years post related experience, or Higher Secondary education and completed advanced vocational training  in that discipline leading to a professional qualification or professional accreditation with 5 years post related and 2 years function related experience.
• Certified as one of the following: Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP), GIAC Security Expert or ISACA Certified Information Security Manager (CISM).
• Certified in TOGAF (or NAF), or alternatively 4 years of experience in applying any of the two methodologies.
• Six years' hands-on experience in large, complex capability engineering, including development, implementation and commissioning. In general, managing resources to develop capabilities will not be considered as valid experience.
• Six years' experience as lead/key contributor in the development of capability or technical level architecture products for complex systems environments, applying a sound framework such as NAF, DoDAF or TOGAF. In general, managing resources to develop architectures will not be considered as valid experience.
• Four years' experience working for NATO or similar military structure (i.e. International Organization or national MoD).

Language:

English - SLP 3333 - (Listening, Speaking, Reading and Writing)

Desirable Qualifications / Experience:

• Master’s degree in systems engineering, computer science, network security, cyber-security or other related field. The education requirement can be substituted with a Bachelor Degree and 5 years of experience in relevant field.
• ITIL certification
• General knowledge of the organization and structure of NATO.
• Demonstrable understanding of cyberspace operations.

 

Attributes/Competencies:

Personal Attributes:

• Incumbent shall demonstrate attributes related to analytic mind-set, ability to decompose complex problems into solution sets, good judgement and common sense, adaptability, flexibility and tact, along with the ability to be target oriented and develop independently in a complex environment.

Managerial Responsibilities:

• Although the incumbent is not expected to directly manage any HQ staff, he/she will be required to organize teams and their work and activities, being able to influence the work strategy and the expected results. Ability to plan, coordinate and synchronize activities will be required with a varied type of internal and external stakeholders, notably in the NICC. Soft skills will be essential.

Professional Contacts:

• The incumbent will have professional contacts, normally at a higher functional level, with others inside and outside the organization, Nations, Industry and Academia. Contacts requiring explanation, discussion, persuasion and approval of action. The incumbent will provide advice, may negotiate and commit the organization to a Course of action (COA).

 Contribution To Objectives:

• The incumbent will work in the analysis or research of complete tasks, with recommendations affecting plans of the Branch.

 

Security Clearance

The successful applicant will be required to apply for and receive a NATO SECRET Security Clearance prior to final confirmation of contract and commencement of employment.

Contract

This position is linked to a specific NATO project and is for a limited duration of 3 (three) years only.

Serving NATO International Civilian staff will be offered a contract in accordance with the NATO Civilian Personnel Regulations.  Newly recruited staff will be offered a three year definite duration contract.

Notes for Candidates

The HQ SACT web site gives full details on the eligibility criteria and application processes to be adopted by all candidates.  However, candidates should particularly note:

Please answer each of the pre-screening questions completely in English. Expressions such as: “please see attached CV, please see annex, please see enclosed document, etc” are not acceptable; this is a cause of immediate rejection of the application.

Particular attention should be given to Education and Experience section of your application form, which should be populated with details of your career to date and educational achievements and certifications as they relate to your application.

The candidature of NATO redundant staff at grade G17 will be considered with priority.

NATO will not accept any phase of the recruitment and selection prepared, in whole or in part, by means of generative artificial-intelligence (AI) tools, including and without limitation to chatbots, such as Chat Generative Pre-trained Transformer (Chat GPT), or other language generating tools. NATO reserves the right to screen applications to identify the use of such tools. All applications prepared, in whole or in part, by means of such generative or creative AI applications may be rejected without further consideration at NATO’s sole discretion, and NATO reserves the right to take further steps in such cases as appropriate.

NATO is committed to diversity and inclusion, and strives to provide equal access to employment, advancement and retention, independent of gender, age, nationality, ethnic origin, religion or belief, cultural background, sexual orientation, and disability. NATO welcomes applications of nationals from all member Nations, and strongly encourages women to apply

This vacancy will close on 28 July 2025 @ 17:59hrs (EDT)/11:59hrs (CEST).